Nepal villagers try to set Indian border guard ablaze

KATHMANDU - A mob in a southern village of Nepal clashed with a group of marauding Indian border patrol guards Thursday and tried to set one of the men ablaze.

Surendra Kumar Chaudhary of Seema Suraksha Bal (SSB) had a narrow escape from being burnt alive in Tikoliya village in Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal’s home district Rautahat after Nepal’s security forces reached the site and rescued him.

The trouble started after a group of four armed Indian border patrol guards intruded into Nepal’s territory chasing fertiliser smugglers, Superintendent of Police Pitambar Adhikari told IANS.

They entered the Nepali village in pursuit of the fugitives and beat up two villagers, including a woman.

Villagers alleged that the Indian guards had wrongfully accosted a Nepali youth returning from India and accused him of smuggling in chemical fertilisers.

The Indian guards were surrounded by villagers who overpowered Chaudhary and tried to set fire to him, private television station Sagarmatha TV reported.

Adhikari said he was in talks with the commander of the Indian patrol and would hand over the captured Indian guard after a formal complaint had been lodged against the intrusion.

The injured, including the woman Chhagani Shah, have been admitted to the Gaur Hospital.

The border area simmered with tension as villagers kept up demonstrations, protesting against “atrocities” by the Indian border force.

Nepal’s media have been regularly reporting intrusions by SSB personnel in Nepali villages and assaults on residents.

In the past, nearly a dozen people, said to be mostly unbalanced beggars, have been torched or lynched to death by suspicious Nepali border villagers who accused them of being witches or members of child-lifting gangs.

(Sudeshna Sarkar can be contacted at sudeshna.s@ians.in)