The Nepal Connection

MIRZA Dilshad Beg may be a ‘honourable’ member of Nepal라이브 바카라 House of Representatives. But he is also a close friend and associate of notorious underworld operator Babloo Srivastava and is linked to the international drug mafia. According to the Nepali police, Srivastava and Mirza acted in tandem during the three years they were together in Kathmandu and it is likely that the CBI would want to interrogate Mirza in connection with Babloo라이브 바카라 operations.

The Mirza-Babloo link came to light after the latter라이브 바카라 arrest in Singapore this August. Interrogation of Babloo by the CBI revealed that Mirza was involved with the international drug mafia and had used his political position and influence to help Babloo set up shop in Nepal.

Mirza helped Srivastava obtain Nepali citizenship from his district, Kapilvastu. Then he influ-enced the then inspector general of police, Hem Bahadur Singh, to rent his Ring Road house in Kathmandu to the notorious criminal who assumed the name Arun Kumar Agarwal. Interpol, CBI and the Nepal police are now looking into the drug-terrorism nexus, with particular reference to Mirza라이브 바카라 mafia links. But what has attracted the most attention is his involvement with crime in India.

According to the Nepal police, Babloo and Mirza worked as a team and the latter may be able to throw some light on the murder of customs collector L.D. Arora who was probing financial dealings of Dawood Ibrahim. The Nepalese police has already intimated to the CBI that Babloo Srivastava had called K.K. Saini and Manjit Singh Mange in Allahabad from Kathmandu. Saini and Mange had carried out Arora라이브 바카라 murder. Babloo also made a call to Sanjay Khanna, an alleged Dawood aide in Bombay and a contoversial god-man in Delhi.

All the calls were made from the same number—410564. This was the phone installed in the then IG라이브 바카라 house which Srivastava had rented. The crime branch of the Nepal police has now seized the computer disc with a list of telephone calls made abroad. Many calls were made by Babloo to India and Dubai. The breakdown of the calls made were submitted to the CBI on October 16.

As far as the Arora killing is concerned, the Nepal police is quite clear about what transpired. Mange and Saini made their entry into Nepal via Krishna Nagar—Mirza라이브 바카라 hometown in western Nepal—in a Maruti car (DLH 8446) and were in Kathmandu with Babloo for a week prior to the murder. They went back to Allahabad and Arora was killed on March 24, 1993. Babloo vacated the house he had rented in the Nepalese capital 15 days later, but always managed to evade arrest. Even the unauthorised and secret raid by CBI officials in 1994 did not surprise the notorious criminal. Subsequently, the Indian Government apologised to Nepal for the raid.

The Nepalese government has always been cooperative in arresting criminals and terrorists wanted for crimes in India who sought shelter on its territory. According to police sources in Kathmandu, in the last four years about 30 persons on the wanted list, including LTTE supporters, Khalistan terrorists and Bombay blast case accused like Yakub Memon and Salim Kutta, have been handed over to the Indian police. It is another matter that in all these cases the arrest has been shown in India since extradition is a long-drawn-out process.

But Babloo had evaded the Nepali police, thanks to Mirza라이브 바카라 clout. Even when he was nabbed by Interpol in Singapore, Babloo insisted that he was holding a Nepali passport in the name of Arun Kumar Agarwal and he should be sent back to Nepal. But the Nepalese authorities refused to accept him back on the plea that he had acquired the citizen라이브 바카라 certificate fraudulently.

Srivastava라이브 바카라 disclosures to the CBI indicate that he had been arrested in Soaltee Hotel라이브 바카라 casino in Nepal some two years ago and was in the custody of the district police. Mirza then used his clout and Srivastava was released. Interestingly, all documentary proof of the arrest is missing. In his startling disclosure, Babloo is believed to have confirmed his arrest and told the CBI that whenever he left Kathmandu, he would inform the "highest police authority" about his movements.

Babloo라이브 바카라 alleged disclosure before the CBI has not yet been officially communicated to the Nepalese government. "We can act only after we get details from India. But we genuinely appreciate India라이브 바카라 sensitivity and will extend full cooperation in containing such crimes," Nepal라이브 바카라 Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba told 바카라. The RPP (Rashtriya Praja-tantra Party), a partner in the coalition government and the party to which Mirza belongs, will be expelling him. Says a senior RPP leader: "We have come to know about Mirza라이브 바카라 antecedants. He will soon be expelled from our party."

Nepalese authorities claim that they are facing a genuine problem in handing Mirza over to the Indian authorities though he was always being projected as an ISI agent by a section of the Indian media as well as BJP and RSS leaders, since these allegations are not backed by "convincing evidence".

According to information available with the Nepal police, Mirza runs an organised network of criminals specialising in drug peddling, murder, dacoity and car-lifting. The cars were lifted from India and later sold in Nepal. However, police officials say they have been unable to ferret any evidence of Mirza라이브 바카라 nexus with the ISI or even with the Pakistan embassy in Kathmandu.

Like Babloo, Mirza is of Indian origin, hailing from a place near Gorakhpur, and is allegedly involved in more than 15 serious crimes including murder. In the mid-’70s, he allegedly killed his business partner and escaped to Bombay and came in contact with the then underworld don, Haji Mastan. That was the beginning of his link with the underworld.

In the early ’80s, he surfaced in Nepal, bought a house and land in Krishna Nagar in Kapilvastu. Later he acquired Nepalese citizenship. A decade later he was elected to the Nepalese Parliament—first in 1991 and then in 1993—after Nepal switched to multi-party democracy. He still maintains close links with politicians in Nepal and India and, if CBI sources are to believed, finances many politicians in both countries.

When in the ’80s the RSS, VHP and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad launched their agitation against "Bangla-deshi infiltrators" into northern India, a large number of Muslims fled from India and crossed the border into Nepal. As a result, the Muslim population of the Himalayan Kingdom rose to about two million, against the 1991 census figure of six lakhs.

Following the ban on the VHP and the RSS after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992, the Sangh Parivar found Nepal a safe haven. The Sangh brotherhood extended its anti-Muslim campaign to the Himalayan Kingdom as well. The participation of King Birendra and Crown Prince Dipendra in VHP-sponsored programmes was construed as legitimacy given by the monarchy to an organisa-tion with a strong anti-Muslim bias.

Mirza라이브 바카라 rise and growing popularity in his community is linked to the polarisation of religious communities which resulted in an unprecedented communal clash in western Nepal recently. Both Dawood and Babloo used Mirza라이브 바카라 growing clout as well as his network to their advantage.

According to a senior official in the Nepal Home Ministry, "Mirza라이브 바카라 being a powerful MP should not create any problem in ‘handing’ him over to Indian authorities for the crimes he has allegedly committed. After all, we have done this before." The Indian authorities have not yet asked for Mirza라이브 바카라 ‘custody’. But such a possibility is not ruled out.

There are indications that the CBI, which is the nodal agency probing the Bombay blast and the Srivastava case, has been instructed by Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao himself to complete the investigations before March. Rao라이브 바카라 alleged closeness to Chandraswami and the latter라이브 바카라 links with Babloo Srivastava might damage Rao라이브 바카라 image during the elections. The criminal-politician nexus could be a major issue in the forthcoming elections and the PM seems keen to clear his name.

Mirza, who has confined himself to his closely guarded house in the Naxal area of Kathmandu, epitomises the vital link between crime and politics. Should he be handed over to India, it would be the first time that an MP of a neigh-bouring country is tried for criminal offences in India. But what the Nepalese and Indian governments are not sure of is, what secrets Mirza might share. He was closely linked to the high and mighty in both countries. It was more often than not, a symbiotic relationship.