Agreement to halt levee construction at border

Rajbiraj, July 29: An agreement has been reached to halt the construction of an embankment being undertaken by the Indian side at Tilathi of Saptari at no-man’s land along the Nepal-India border.

A joint meeting attended by Saptari’s Chief District Officer Baldev Gautam, and India’s Supaul District’s DM Baidhnath Yadav, on Friday, agreed to immediately halt the construction of embankment. The meeting was held at Kunauli, India, police from Saptari said.

The meeting has revealed that no action would be taken until a team of engineers from the department of water induced disaster prevention in Nepal and department of water resources in India present a report offering the solutions to deal with this matter.

Supaul DM Yadav said, “The construction of river embankment will be halted as the work will be affected due to rain in monsoon and until the technical persons submit a report on the same.”

He added that action will be taken against those manhandling Nepalis in the Thursday’s incident.
Before this, a team led by Saptari Chief District Officer Baldev Gautam comprising Armed Police and Nepali Police officials, and Seema Surakshya Bal officials including Supaul district police chief from India jointly inspected the disputed levee.

The clash had taken place between Nepali and India sides on Thursday after the Indian side tried to reconstruct the levee breached by the flood. The Indian side had constructed the levee at Tilathi of Saptari district around one decade ago. Some 12 people from both sides were injured in the clash. RSS