House panel call to banish diplomat

KATHMANDU, AUG 10 -
The Parliamentary Committee on International Relations and Human Rights on Tuesday directed the government to banish the Indian Embassy diplomat who allegedly threatened a Constituent Assembly member and asked it to make the Indian Embassy tender an apology.

The committee also confirmed that the recent visit of Shyam Saran, the special envoy of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, was against protocol and directed the government to ensure that such uninformed visits do not recur.

The decision was taken unanimously in Tuesday’s meeting of the committee that had summoned Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal, who did not turn up, and Foreign Minister Sujata Koirala to ascertain the facts behind the alleged threat issued by the Indian embassy official to Maoist lawmaker Ram Kumar Sharma.

The Committee asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to take initiatives to investigate the incident and do as told subsequently.

Sharma has been demanding an investigation into the alleged “death threat” issued to him by a consular of the Indian Embassy on Friday. Sharma had said he was “threatened” for garnering the Madhesi parties’ support for the UCPN (Maoist) in the prime ministerial election on Aug. 2.

After grilling Koirala, the committee decided to condemn the incident as an attack on the entire nation and its sovereignty. “This is a challenge to the sovereignty of the nation,” said Committee Chairman Padam Lal Bishwokarma.

Lawmakers also slammed the prime minister for “evading” the House session in a departure from the time-honoured parliamentary tradition of Cabinet members attending to the legislature’s call. Nepal did not show up saying that the foreign minister’s presence would suffice to clarify the issue.

In the session, Koirala said her ministry had sent a letter to the Indian embassy asking it to shed light on the alleged threat. She said the embassy replied that it “doesn’t dignify such baseless reports and allegations.” Embassy spokesperson Apoorva Srivastav made a similar comment before the media on Friday, the day of the alleged incident.

Koirala said the Home Ministry would be the right authority to look into the issue. She also said that Saran was on a private visit and “the foreign ministry was not informed about it.”

Maoist leaders had raised the issue with Indian Ambassador Rakesh Sood. “We will submit a memorandum as a verbal assurance is not enough,” Maoist leader Narayan Kaji Shrestha told the committee on Tuesday.

Indian newspapers including the The Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Indian Express and The Hindu have covered the alleged threat and the controversy.

Source: http://www.ekantipur.com/the-kathmandu-post/2010/08/10/top-story/house-panel-call-to-banish-diplomat/211420/