Nepal made such a request during the two-day meeting of the joint secretaries of home ministries of the two countries, which concluded on Friday, in view of growing trend of criminals sneaking into India after having committed crimes in the Nepali territory. [break]
“The Nepali side raised the issue before the Indian side saying it has substantiated details of the whereabouts of 367 alleged criminals in India,” an official, who attended the meeting, told Republica.
According to another source, the Ministry of Home Affairs has compiled the details of the whereabouts of the people involved in crimes in Nepal and living in India to avoid legal action in the Nepali territory.
Nepal also raised the issue of smuggling of small arms from India to Nepal. The Nepali side told the Indian side that Nepal has a record of 838 small arms smuggled from the southern border into Nepal over a couple of years.
“In response, the Indian side has pledged to extend help to address our concerns,” said the source on condition of anonymity.
As both the sides acknowledged the necessity of sharing the information on border management and controlling cross-border crimes, Joint Secretary Sudhir Kumar Shah of Nepal and KK Mittal of India agreed to share information at different levels of both the governments.
India also raised similar security concerns before the Nepali side, said a source. But the Indian officials failed to give the details of the alleged criminals wanted by India and hiding in Nepal. They also raised the issue of fake Indian currency allegedly smuggled into the Indian territory via the porous Nepal-India border, said the sources.
In addition, both the countries have agreed to immediately adopt necessary measures to prevent criminal activities on the Nepal-India border, according to a statement from the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Nepal and India have also agreed to give life to the Nepalgunj-Rupadiya pilot project, which is about maintaining record of the people who travel across the Nepal-India border via Nepalgunj and Rupadiya.
In another joint effort to manage the porous border, Nepal and India have also agreed to make active the border district coordination committee at the local level.
The meeting was also supposed to finalize the details of Indian assistance for establishing Nepal Police Academy in Banepa but failed. According to a source, Nepal rejected the Indian proposal to station Indian security experts at the academy for five years. But Nepal expressed its readiness to allow Indian security experts for a year.
The meeting is the first of its kind since 2006. Though the joint secretaries of the home ministries of both the countries were supposed to hold meeting every six months, such a meeting had not taken place for the last five years.
The meeting has been taken as a foundation for the proposed meeting of home secretaries of Nepal and India to be held in New Delhi.
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