Crack down on ISI activities, Vajpayee tells Nepal PM

NEW DELHI, JAN 5: Prime Minister A B Vajpayee is believed to have written to Nepal Prime Minister K P Bhattarai, asking him to take action...

NEW DELHI, JAN 5: Prime Minister A B Vajpayee is believed to have written to Nepal Prime Minister K P Bhattarai, asking him to take action against Pakistan-funded activity in Nepal that is inimical to India’s interests.

Highly-placed sources in the Government said the letter is part of a campaign New Delhi intends to take up with the international community to show that Pakistan is directly involved in funding terrorism against India.On Monday, Vajpayee had said in Pune that India expects the US to take the initiative in declaring Pakistan a “terrorist state”. The assessment here is that after its defeat in Kargil, Islamabad “wants to rub India’s nose in the ground” and that it admirably succeeded in doing so with the hijacking crisis.

In the letter, Vajpayee is believed to have gone beyond seeking Kathmandu’s assistance in piecing together the Nepal end of the hijacking. The sources said, the PM has requested that Kathmandu take action in cleaning up the ISI network in Nepal.

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Government sourcespointed out that Kathmandu is already beginning to take action following the hijack crisis, beyond instituting a high-level inquiry headed by a retired IGP, Hem Bahadur Singh.

All the customs, immigration and the Royal Nepal Airlines officials handling the IC-814 flight in Kathmandu on December 24 have been suspended. All private money-changers as well as private duty-free operators at Kathmandu airport, including an outlet owned by an alleged big-time smuggler, Tibrewala, have been closed down. “Clearly, there is already a greater degree of cooperation with Nepal, if you look at the arrest by the Nepalese authorities yesterday of Asam Saboor, a Pakistani official in the embassy in Kathmandu,” the sources said.

Saboor was picked up in a sting operation for selling fake Indian currency. But, as the sources pointed out, such cooperation was not in place even a couple of months ago when one Lakhbir Singh was arrested by the Nepalese police for possessing 20 kg of RDX on Nov 14. Asked by the Nepalese policewhere he got it from, Singh said Arshad Cheema, a first secretary in the consular section of the Pakistani embassy, had given it to him.