A raid on an Indian police post by Nepal's Maoist rebels and arrests of their comrades on Indian soil could be indications that a bloody revolt in that country could be spilling over.
A group of armed men, including some Nepalis, overran the post and took away weapons last month in thick forests in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, which shares a long border with Nepal, the head of a special Indian police unit said.
The attack on the police post came shortly after 12 Maoists, including some middle-level operatives, were arrested from a house in Patna, Bihar's capital, along with a huge haul of explosives, ammunition and Marxist literature.
"This is the first organized attack of its kind near the border and the most serious threat ever," said Deputy Inspector General Vinay Kumar Singh, the head of a unit whose task is to put down left-wing extremism in Bihar.
"We are simply not prepared to face the Maoists of Nepal," he said late on Wednesday.
More than 10,000 people have died in Nepal since the rebels began a campaign in 1996 to replace the constitutional monarchy with communist rule.
Bihar, one of India's poorest and most lawless states, has its own clutch of outlawed radical-left guerrilla groups who have helped the rebels with training, shelter, medical facilities and arms.
But the Nepali Marxists are not known to have carried out strikes on Indian soil before.
"The day they start full scale operations into Indian territory, we will find ourselves very inadequate," Singh said. "We don't have enough police stations, we don't have enough weapons to tackle them."
Analysts have long warned that an unstable Nepal, sand-wiched between India and China, would turn into a security nightmare for both Asian giants.
With the Maoists controlling a vast swath of mountainous Nepal, there is also concern that the desperately poor nation could become a haven for international militant groups.
Nepal and India share a long and open border which thousands of people cross each day. Kathmandu has repeatedly urged New Delhi to increase surveillance along the border and to crack down on rebel hideouts.
Singh said the Maoists caught in Patna told their landlord they were students. The landlord later said he had little reason to doubt them because Nepalis are rep-resented in almost every walk of life in India.
Since 2001, police in Bihar have arrested 42 Nepali Maoists, including some who had come for treatment of wounds sustained in the fighting in the mountain kingdom. Others made the trip to deepen ties with left-wing groups, including in southern India.
Singh said guerrilla leaders in Nepal and India had often spoken of a "red corridor," stretching from the Himalayan kingdom to large swaths of the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh.
"We all laughed 10 years ago at the red corridor. Nobody is laughing anymore," he said.
REVENGE: Trump said he had the support of the Syrian government for the strikes, which took place in response to an Islamic State attack on US soldiers last week The US launched large-scale airstrikes on more than 70 targets across Syria, the Pentagon said on Friday, fulfilling US President Donald Trump’s vow to strike back after the killing of two US soldiers. “This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance,” US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote on social media. “Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies. Lots of them. And we will continue.” The US Central Command said that fighter jets, attack helicopters and artillery targeted ISIS infrastructure and weapon sites. “All terrorists who are evil enough to attack Americans are hereby warned
‘POLITICAL LOYALTY’: The move breaks with decades of precedent among US administrations, which have tended to leave career ambassadors in their posts US President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered dozens of US ambassadors to step down, people familiar with the matter said, a precedent-breaking recall that would leave embassies abroad without US Senate-confirmed leadership. The envoys, career diplomats who were almost all named to their jobs under former US president Joe Biden, were told over the phone in the past few days they needed to depart in the next few weeks, the people said. They would not be fired, but finding new roles would be a challenge given that many are far along in their careers and opportunities for senior diplomats can
Seven wild Asiatic elephants were killed and a calf was injured when a high-speed passenger train collided with a herd crossing the tracks in India’s northeastern state of Assam early yesterday, local authorities said. The train driver spotted the herd of about 100 elephants and used the emergency brakes, but the train still hit some of the animals, Indian Railways spokesman Kapinjal Kishore Sharma told reporters. Five train coaches and the engine derailed following the impact, but there were no human casualties, Sharma said. Veterinarians carried out autopsies on the dead elephants, which were to be buried later in the day. The accident site
RUSHED: The US pushed for the October deal to be ready for a ceremony with Trump, but sometimes it takes time to create an agreement that can hold, a Thai official said Defense officials from Thailand and Cambodia are to meet tomorrow to discuss the possibility of resuming a ceasefire between the two countries, Thailand’s top diplomat said yesterday, as border fighting entered a third week. A ceasefire agreement in October was rushed to ensure it could be witnessed by US President Donald Trump and lacked sufficient details to ensure the deal to end the armed conflict would hold, Thai Minister of Foreign Affairs Sihasak Phuangketkeow said after an ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting in Kuala Lumpur. The two countries agreed to hold talks using their General Border Committee, an established bilateral mechanism, with Thailand
RSS