Kathmandu, October 12
Nepali Congress leader Jeevan Bahadur Shahi has claimed China has encroached on Nepali land in Humla.
The Provincial Assembly member representing the district says he visited the site from September 30 to October 10 and concluded that China unilaterally erected a new border pillar to encroach on the land.
Shahi’s statement comes days after both governments of Nepal and China denied media reports about the encroachment. The government spokesperson, Foreign Affairs Minister Pradeep Kumar Gyawali, had also said the reports were fake, which the main opposition party had termed a statement in haste.
“We found pillar number 12 was newly erected at an altitude of 5,098 metres. It looks recently coloured,” he explains, “No joint monitoring team has visited the place since 2007. You can assure that China repaired the pillar, but doing that unilaterally is also wrong. Only the joint monitoring team is authorised.”
He demands that both countries form an experts’ team to study the issue and hold dialogues to solve the dispute.
