Siliguri,
April 8: The Maoist reprisal to avenge the arrest of Mohan Baidya
has left tourists planning to travel to and from Nepal in a lurch. A three-day Maoist-sponsored strike
in Nepal and incidents of violence in border areas has brought vehicular
movement in the Himalayan kingdom to a grinding halt, leaving a
number of tourists stranded at different points in their journey.
Tour operators in Siliguri and across the border have reported
mass cancellation of bookings in the wake of the upsurge in Maoist
activity. A group of 33 Greek tourists en-route from Kathmandu was stranded
at Bhadrapur airport in eastern Nepal till yesterday afternoon as
the nation-wide strike paralysed all forms of transportation. They
alleged that a great deal of harassment was taking place at the
Kakarvitta immigration post in the name of security checks.
Olymbioy Kyriakos, one of the Greek tourists, said: `We did
not have any idea as to what went wrong all of a sudden. The country
(Nepal) came to a standstill overnight and we had to be escorted
from Bhadrapur airport to the Kakarvitta border post by Nepal security
personnel. At the Panitanki-Kakarvitta customs check post, we had
to undergo a four-hour ordeal as the security officers insisted
on checking and confirming every minute detail. As a result, we
nearly missed our flight from Bagdogra.`