China encroaches Nepali lands as opposition lawmakers demand its reclamation

The issue of encroachment became clear via the report published by Nepali agencies.

Since 1962, China has also taken over an entire village that falls in the world famous Gorkha district, but this fact has come to light only now after a local publication carried a story recently, The Sunday Guardian reported.

According to official sources in Nepal, in many places, the encroachment has been done simply by shifting border pillars, reported the magazine.

Shiva Upreti, the Gorkha district correspondent of Nepalese newspaper Annapurna Post in a story done on 7 July, had revealed that China has occupied the entire Rui village that comes under Gorkha district.

Speaking to The Sunday Guardian, a local journalist who is based in Gorkha district, said that the Chinese had occupied the Rui village in 1962 itself.

According to him, the Chinese had taken over the entire village by simply shifting the pillars that demarcate one side from the other.

“Border marker numbers 34,35,36,37,38hadbeen shifted at the border (that denoted Nepal’s claim over the territory), which has led to Northern Gorkha’s Rui Village falling into China’s Tibet region. 170 households of Rui village of Gorkha district and 18 houses of Darchula are in Chinese territory despite being a part of Nepal,” he told the magazine.

Other local Kathmandu-based journalists with whomThe Sunday Guardian spoke to said that the residents of Rui village have lost monasteries and grazing land to the Chinese now.

“The local government officer went to this village in 2019 and this was the first time that a government officer had visited this village since 1962. And this was when the locals told him about the Chinese encroachment,” a journalist told the magazine.

The Sunday Guardian also reached out to other journalists based in Nepal, seeking to know whether any action has been taken by the K.P. Sharma Oli government to “recover” the Chinese occupied territory following the publication of the news in Annapurna Post.

Three lawmakers of the main opposition party Nepali Congress (NC) have appealed for the Parliament’s commitment to reclaim the land China has encroached upon by shifting the border pillars towards the Nepali side, reports Khabarhub.

NC lawmakers Devendra Raj Kandel, Satya Narayan Sharma Khanal and Sanjaya Kumar Gautam drew the attention of the parliamentarians and the government towards the land encroached by the northern neighbor, reports the news portal.

Land dispute with India:

The Nepali Parliament voted recently on a constitutional amendment bill in a special session to revise the country's map which includes some parts India claims as its own.

Out of the 275 members of Nepal's House of Representatives, 258 votes went in favour of the amendment bill, which was passed by a two-thirds majority.

Recently, Nepal's ruling party had cleared the map paving the way for friction between the two countries.

Now that the bill has been passed, it will be sent to the National Assembly where it will undergo a similar process.

The new map of Nepal includes a portion of land on the east of river Kali, which extends out from the northwestern tip of Nepal.

The area includes the Lipulekh Pass in Uttarakhand and also Limpiyadhura and Kalapani, which are strategically significant areas for India and the country has been guarding since the 1962 war with China.