Form dialogue team on Tikapur incident and come to dialogue: Home Minister Thapa

Kathmandu: Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa Badal has urged the agitating parties to form a dialogue team on the Tikapur incident in Kailali. 

Home Minister Thapa, who arrived at the Maitighar Mandal on Thursday at the invitation of the Tharu Welfare Assembly and the Tharuhat / Tharuwan Joint Struggle Committee, said that the problem should be resolved by forming a dialogue team from the government and the struggle committee. He urged the government to form a negotiating team soon and the struggle committee to stop the sit-in.

He also expressed his commitment to form a negotiating team and bring it to a conclusion at the cabinet meeting on Thursday. Home Minister Thapa said that some issues of the Tikapur incident could be resolved politically and some could be resolved legally and administratively. 

Former Member of Parliament Rukmini Chaudhary said that it was positive that the Home Minister himself came on the fifth day of the sit-in to understand the demands. He said that the Tikapur incident was of a political nature and should be resolved through political consensus. He said that a dialogue team would be formed only if the Nepali government wrote a letter in the name of Tharu Welfare Assembly and Tharuhat / Tharuwan Joint Struggle Committee. 

Tharu leaders have staged a sit-in at Maitighar Mandala on Sunday demanding the return of those convicted in the 2072 Tikapur incident and the release of those convicted.