We want India to leave this territory right away

Nepalese around the world came down heavily upon India’s act of constructing a strategic link road connecting Dharchula of the Indian State of Uttarakhand with the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) of China via the Lipulekh Pass, a Nepal territory. We are against the Indian demanded that India return the Nepal’s territories of Limpiyadhura, Kalapani and Lipulekh.

On Friday, India's Defence Minister Rajnath Singh announced the completion of the link road “to be used by Indian pilgrims” to go to Mansarovar of Tibet via the Lipulekh Pass.

India’s Home Ministry on November 2, last year, unveiled a new political map, placing Kalapani inside the Indian borders. After huge public outcry and four days after the Indian home Ministry released the political map placing Kalapani, a Nepali territory, inside the Indian borders after creating Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh as its union territories, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nepal issued a press statement, objecting to the Indian move and asserting that Kalapani is an integral part of Nepal.

"The Nepal government firmly believes that Kalapani is a part of Nepal," read the press statement issued by the ministry.

Nepal, on November 20, also sent a diplomatic note to India, expressing its disagreement with the new political map of India. But instead of seeking a diplomatic solution, India unveiled the controversial map and, recently, inaugurated the road constructed in the disputed region.

Amid coronavirus fears, people are expressing their disagreements via social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter. Hem Babu Lekhak, coordinator of ‘Save the Soil’ campaign, said that the government should immediately take diplomatic steps and retrieve the Nepali land. “We should not lose even an inch of Nepali territory,” he firmly said.

The locals are distressed by repeated Indian acts of including Nepali territory in its map and constructing roads on the Nepali side. “We are heavily disappointed after India built a road inside our territory,” said Dilip Singh Budhathoki, the chairman of Darchula’s Byas Rural Municipality.

The issue of Kalapani emerged as an issue of national concern after Member of Parliament, late Prem Singh Dhami, raised his voice against the encroachment of the Nepal land by India in the Nepal parliament in the early 1990s. “Why doesn’t Kalapani hurt Kathmandu?” he had asked. Later 2055 BS (late 1990s), the All Nepal National Free Students’ Union, the student wing of the then CPN (UML) had organized a ‘march-past’ up to Kalapani. Dhami, meanwhile, died in a jeep accident. Since then, the Kalapani issue remained at the backburner.

But now social media is once again abuzz with dissident Nepalese voice demanding a strong initiative by the Nepal government to retrieve the Nepal’s land. Locals are now demanding that the government knock the doors of the International Court. “India has already acted in an undiplomatic way. Therefore, the government should act strongly and get all the encroached land back,” said civil society activist Pramod Pathak.
India on Friday inaugurated the strategic link road connecting Dharchula of the Indian State of Uttarakhand and the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) of China via the Lipulekh Pass, a Nepali territory which lies in the country's north-western frontier with China.

On Twitter, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said he had inaugurated the link road to Mansarovar through video conferencing. Lipulekh is the same territory through which India and China agreed to develop a trade route back in 2015.
However, it has been learnt that the construction of the road , which Singh inaugurated on Friday, was started in 2008, according to the Chief District Officer (CDO) of Darchula, Yadunath Poudel.
A 17-km-long stretch of this road lies in the Nepali territory. CDO Poudel, however, said that they do not have solid information on when India started the road construction on the Nepali side of the border. “We don’t have any government authorities in that region. Therefore, we lack information on when they [India] began the construction,” he said.