Tourist trouble over reprisal

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.`

Courtesy
The Telegraph

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