Army: Nepal protest at someone’s behest

nNEWDELHI: In a veiled reference to a possible Chinese role, army chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane on Friday asserted that Nepal’s protest against the construction of a border road in Uttarakhand was at the behest of someone else. Indian and Chinese soldiers have scuffled twice along their disputed border in Sikkim and Ladakh this month.

Kathmandu has expressed regret at the inauguration of the road from Dharchula to Lipulekh (the gateway to Kailash-mansarovar), contending the road “passes through Nepali territory”. Defence minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated the road through video conferencing on May 8.

“The area east of Kali (Mahakali) river belongs to them (Nepal). The road that we built is on the west of the river. There was no dispute about that. I don’t know what they are agitating about,” Naravane said, during an online talk organised by the Manohar Parrikar Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses.

He pointed out that it was a possibility that Nepal raised the issue at someone else’s behest, adding there had been no such problem previously.

The 80-km stretch is the shortest route for the Kailash-mansarovar Yatra. Pilgrims travel to the 6,638-metre Mount Kailash, located near Mansarovar Lake in the Tibet Autonomous Region, every year believing that circumambulating the mountain brings good fortune. New Delhi has asserted that the region where the road has been built is “within the territory of India.” The Nepal government summoned the Indian envoy on May 11 to protest the construction of the road.

The border row erupted months after Nepal was irked by the depiction of Kalapani as part of Uttarakhand in new Indian maps showing the union territories of J&K and Ladakh. Nepal had sought talks to address the issue but New Delhi rejected Kathmandu’s protest.

There was no official response to the remarks from Nepal’s foreign ministry but people familiar with the developments in Kathmandu said the government was upset by the comments as the Indian army chief also holds the honorary position of the chief of Nepalese Army.