Nude Indian dancers’ tale propaganda, say Nepal Police

KATHMANDU - Reacting to a Nepali TV channel’s reports that hundreds of Indian women had been brought to Nepal to perform obscene dances in the nude, Nepal Police Monday said it was baseless propaganda.

Private Nepali television station Avenue TV had Sunday aired scenes taken with a hidden camera in Saptari district on the Indo-Nepal border where a garden had been turned into a seemingly orgiastic scene with scantily clad women cavorting to the tune of Hindi songs.

The report said such obscene dance shows, featuring hundreds of Indian girls, were being organised by groups from Bihar in connivance with Nepali security officials who turned a blind eye to them.

In a follow-up report Monday, the TV station said the district administration had swung into action after the scenes broadcast a day earlier and had closed down at least three such dance centres.

However, top police officials at Rajbiraj, the district headquarters, told IANS that the dance shows were no new phenomenon but part of a long cultural tradition.

“Every year, during the Dussehra festival, such shows are organised by the local people themselves,” a senior police officer, who did not want to be named, said. “The girls keep their clothes on and there is no obscenity. Had it been so, there would have been complaints from the local people themselves.”

The official indicated it could be a propaganda against police.

The report comes as Kathmandu police have begun an anti-vice drive in the capital, cracking down on the city’s dance bars and massage parlours that also allegedly serve as a front for prostitution.