Maoist groups in Nepal are now using police atrocities in the border areas to fuel anti-India sentiments in the Himalayan kingdom.
According to highly-placed intelligence sources, a film prepared by Maoist groups that shows incidents of atrocities by personnel of Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) on Nepalis along the Uttar Pradesh-Nepal border is being distributed and shown to the Nepali community.
The CD was confiscated by one of the officials along the border district and sent to the home ministry.
“The CD contains scenes of men and women of Nepali origin being brutally beaten up by cops wearing SSB uniforms. The CD also contains interviews of Nepali people who relate how they faced atrocities at the hands of the police personnel in India. Apart from this, another CD that is being circulated in areas with a Nepali population along the border shows how Nepali men and women who come to work in India are exploited. The murder of Hemraj in the Aarushi case is one of the highlights of the CD,” said an intelligence official.
The official said that the tone and tenor of the CD was decidedly anti-India. Apparently, the CD is being used to promote anti-Indian sentiments among the people of Nepal which later could be used to advantage by divisive groups.
Sources said that Sashastra Seema Bal personnel often intercept suspicious infiltrators from the porous UP-Nepal borders and, at times, tend to deal “harshly” with them.
A senior SSB official in a border district, when contacted, refused to comment on the CD, but admitted, on condition of anonymity, that cross-border movement was becoming a major problem.
“It is an open border and arms, drugs and fake currency is regularly smuggled in from here. We have to be stern while dealing with people who cannot explain a valid reason for coming into the country. Women are also smuggled in from Nepal for flesh trade,” he disclosed.
Interestingly, Waris Ali, a BSP MA from Nanpara in Bahraich had earlier written a letter to the state government detailing the atrocities being committed along the border areas by the SSB personnel.