Assistant Chief District Officer of Jhapa, Yogendra Dulal, claimed that asylum seekers arrested by Nepal Police are not “Bhutanese refugees”.
“A high-level verification team formed by the Ministry of Home Affairs has issued refugee identity cards to all pending cases,” Dulal told mediapersons at Damak on Thursday.
File photo : Assistant CDO Yogendra Dulal signing an agreement paper committing to fulfill demands of asylum seekers in Beldangi-II last year
“These people are not refugees from Bhutan. We’ll exercise measures to remove them from the refugee camps funded by aid agencies,” he stated.
Dulal also reiterated the stance of local government that those arrested would be punished as he blamed them of ‘disturbing camp management committee elections’ in the camps.
Damak police have already filed a public offence case against 18 Bhutanese nationals arrested on Monday from Beldangi-II. There are remanded in a weeklong judicial custody at Damak Police Station after appearing at the Jhapa district court yesterday.
Meanwhile, health conditions of all detainees are reportedly deteriorating as they have been fasting-unto-death since Monday afternoon. Three women have been hospitalized at the Lifeline Hospital.
However, local media reports from Damak quoted police officials as refuting reports of hunger strikes inside the prison cells.
The Nepal Red Cross Society and educational caretaker of Bhutanese refugees distributed some relief materials to Beldangi-I fire victims on Wednesday.
A displaced refugee woman outside her hut (Picture courtesy : Purbelitimes)
The Caritas contributed for vegetables for the displaced in a mess cooking organized by volunteers, while the Red Cross provided other materials
Chief District Officer, Narendra Raj Sharma, distributed blankets, bed-sheets, pants and shirts, and Sarees provided by the Nepal Red Cross, Jhapa branch to 64 families on Wednesday.
Refugees belonging to 110 families have been displaced by a midday fire on Tuesday. They are taking shelter in the camp-based schools.
“The whole camp is concentrating towards election. Everyone has ignored us,” a woman in her thirty lamented while responding to our correspondent.
According to her, she couldn’t save anything except a pair of cloths for her three children.
I applied all efforts to move my children and octogenarian grandma to a safe place, she narrated. “As I returned to take out some belongings, the flame was so severe that I could just grasp a sack with few cloths.”
A few vehicles belonging to aid agencies arrived this morning, according to fire victims.
“We saw a few gentlemen coming out of vehicles. They just moved around the fire site and returned,” a refugee, who identified himself as Nar Bahadur Chhetri, told BNS.
Beside him was a woman in 50s. She was desperately searching some valuable items in her burnt hut, even not knowing if the deserted hut belonged to her.
Some children, who were spotted dusty and full of smog, were collecting trashes as they hope to bring those materials in use.
The situation is so compelling that everyone who passes by this area definitely gives a stop and looks around helplessly.
Nepal Police on Thursday filed a public offense case against 18 Bhutanese nationals where were arrested on Monday afternoon on charge of ‘disturbing elections in camp’.
Asylum seekers
Police lodged a public offense case against them at Jhapa District Court earlier today.
The Bhutanese nations, who have continued their fasting-unto-death since their arrest on Monday, are remanded in Damak Police Station after appearing at the district court.
Deputy Chief District Officer, Yogendra Dulal, also confirmed public offence case against the asylum seekers.
Meanwhile, the Bhutanese Refugee Representative Repatriation Committee (BRRRC) has asked the Nepalese government to figure out nationality of those arrested Bhutanese.
“These are genuine citizens of Bhutan. If Nepali officials are doubtful about their identity, I must ask them to point out their nationality,” the Committee’s chairman Dr Bhama Rai said in a statement issued today.
According to Dr Rai, Nepal should immediate investigate into identity of those people and grant them the Bhutanese refugee identity.
“I am sure the Nepalese government officials are aware of the fact that every person has universal right to be identified as a citizen of a particular nation. And, my fellow citizens are Bhutanese,” he added.
King Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuk and her majesty the Gyaltsuen returned home Wednesday after a week-long state visit to India.
The royals
Prime Minister Jigmi Y Thinley, ministers from his cabinet and royal family members received the royals at Paro Airport.
While in India, the King graced the Indian Republic Day celebrations as Chief Guest, and called on Indian President Pranab Mukharjee and Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, among others.
The two-day elections of camp management committee (CMC) of Beldangi and Sanischare camp have completed Thursday electing Sangchahang Subba from Beldangi and Pratap Subba as Camp Secretaries.
Newly elected Beldangi Secretary Subba and Deputy Camp Secretary Binu Chhetri (Picture: TB Chhetri/BNS)
In today’s Beldangi election, 28-year-old Sangchahang secured 97 votes out of some 290 voters defeating five other candidates for the same post. He was serving as Chief of Camp Watch Team (CWT).
The outgoing Camp Secretary, Dhan Bir Subba, was his immediate contestant with 74 votes followed by Kumar Thapa (62 votes), Chandra Tiwari (32 votes), Rohit Mahat (23 votes) and Mon Bahadur Mongar (9 votes).
“My first priority includes making the camp environment more secure and peaceful for living,” Sangchahang told BNS over telephone.
“As a young secretary, I will have a lot of challenges in managing the camp. So, I need supports from every corner,” added he.
Pratap Subba
Man Dhoj Gurung and Binu Chhetri were elected Deputy Camp Secretaries for three Beldangi camps, the former to represent Beldangi-I camp.
While in Sanischare, veteran singer Pratap Subba has been elected the Camp Secretary. Subba has also served in the same post in the past.
Election officials from the government and UNHCR restricted mediapersons from entering into the election hall.
“To honor his memory, we must make his unfulfilled dream our own, acting to achieve our own most audacious aspirations and working to make them real.” – Leslie Sokolow
Mourning a young scholar-hero-friend
By Tamar Orvell This is one of those times when grief is the price of love.
Pritam Adhikari’s too-short life proves that a person can overcome almost all obstacles to succeed in shaping a dream and taking every possible step to realize it. Pritam’s dogged pursuit of his dream galvanized people, reminding us of the needs of others, and expanded the vision and hope of his mourners and his spiritual heirs in generations yet to come.
Honoree (multiple years) at SEWA International (Atlanta Chapter) scholarship award ceremony for academic excellence and volunteer service (Picture courtesy: Indira Sarma, Pritam’s sister)
Born in Bhutan, Pritam grew up in Beldangi-II, a refugee camp in the eastern part of the Himalayan nation, Nepal. His 100,000-person community was ethnically cleansed from Bhutan, their homeland. In the camp, playing with paper airplanes, his early childhood dream of becoming an aerospace engineer was born. In August 2008, when his family joined the growing Bhutanese refugee community in Atlanta, Pritam took advantage of every opportunity to realize that dream.
We met Pritam through the Atlanta Bhutanese Refugee Support Group, a collective of volunteers whose goal is to help our new neighbors resettle in the U.S. and rebuild their lives.
In late 2010, when Pritam was applying to colleges, he asked me to review his personal essay and to work with him to present a sharp, clear picture of his candidacy. On submitting his applications and essay, he gave me permission to publish it on our multimedia blog about his community’s experiences, accomplishments, cultural festivals, pressing needs, and struggles.
Today, Pritam’s essay has become a written legacy and testament that shows what a young refugee can achieve with pluck, brains, focus, faith, and support and love of family, community, and allies worldwide.
Since Pritam’s death, more than 5,000 people worldwide have read his essay (including people in multiple U.S. states, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, and Germany).
At his funeral service last month, Pritam’s parents and immediate and extended family, friends, and community — more than 1000 people mourned this courageous, brilliant, accomplished, and confident soul who was without a trace of arrogance. Thousands more mourned him on Facebook and elsewhere online and in person. “I miss him, even though I never knew him,” someone wrote. Others wrote: “We the Bhutanese, either as parents, guardians, friends or future generation should vow to work together to accomplish his dreams.” “[His death is] one of the cruel acts of nature against the blooming bud.” “You lived a gentle life with the fiercest passion for life.” “We became friends quickly because of his nerdy talk and courteousness.” “We are incomplete without you bro, you will be always with us no matter of your physical presence. Rest in peace, we love you.”
Quintessentially self-reliant, Pritam knew when to ask for help, and from whom. For example, just weeks before his first college semester was to start in summer 2011, he learned that an administrative snag was threatening his admission, scholarship, and legal rights, and he called for help managing the crisis. “Team Pritam” formed almost overnight with specialists in law, taxation, strategic planning, networking, and higher education working closely with Pritam to achieve a successful resolution of the problem.
L-R Pritam, his father, mother, brother Alok, and younger sister Hima at the IOM bus stop, leaving Beldangi-2 refugee camp for the USA (Picture courtesy: Adhikari family relative)
What explains this phenomenon, this outsized talent for connecting and this vision and industry that so easily captivated me and countless others? “Though my parents attended only grade school, they inspired me by their example to work hard and discipline myself for a bright future,” explained Pritam in his personal essay.
Pritam’s life reminds us that while geography, history, culture, and core communal ideas shape us, each person has individual agency. “Life circumstances required me to follow a long, nontraditional route toward my goal, and though I am financially poor, mentally, I’m rich! I bring to an academic community the unique gifts of a refugee student from another hemisphere and who can teach and inspire fellow students and others. I’m excited to share my experience, knowledge, culture, traditions, and positive attitudes, and to make an outstanding contribution to the community.”
May his memory be a blessing.
Remembering Pritam
By Leslie Sokolow I met Pitamber “Pritam” Adhikari two years ago.
Since the refugee community began settling in Atlanta in 2009, I had been working with Bhutanese teens to help them integrate and plan for their future. These were young people who were already 19–21 years old but were given the opportunity to attend high school for 2 years to prepare for college.
In general, they were a shy bunch, overwhelmed by the chaos of moving to a foreign land and the sudden choices that such a move represented. Pritam was exceptional; he had a rare “carpe diem” spirit, eager to seize the opportunities that being in the U.S. presented him. His dream was to become an aerospace engineer, seemingly improbable for someone who spent most of his life living in a thatched hut in a refugee camp. He arrived with limited English skills and an incomplete education, but within two years, he graduated from high school in the top 5% in his class, with several AP (Advanced Placement) courses under his belt and many academic awards. By graduating with high honors and having a surname that started with an A, he was the first in his large class to receive his diploma. His leading his entire school to the podium was a powerful image that served as a model for his refugee peers — if he could do it, so might they. He showed other young refugees how to be faithful to family and community, while not neglecting one’s own dreams.
Pritam and his mother on his high school graduation day (Picture courtesy: Bhola N. Adhikari, Pritam’s father)
We met in mid-April of his senior year because he had a handful of college admission offers and needed help choosing one by the May 1st deadline. He recognized that Georgia Tech was the best place for him because it had one of the top programs in aerospace engineering and would be tuition free with the Georgia Hope Scholarship. Alas, GA Tech waitlisted him, and he had to cross it off his list. His other options were strong, and he ended up choosing Oglethorpe University, a fine private institution in Atlanta with an engineering transfer program with GA Tech. He joined an engineering lab at GA Tech and spent time each summer and during the school year doing research. In many ways, he was already a student there. GA Tech remained the dream he actively pursued.
He checked in with me every six months via email, usually with an update and a question or favor to ask. He tried to transfer to GA Tech at the beginning of his second year. Again he was waitlisted, and a spot never opened. It was hard for him to be deferred because he was certain he was supposed to be there. Finally a few months ago, GA Tech found a spot for him to begin in January 2013, the spring semester of his sophomore year. He was going there at last, or so we thought.
Cruelly, in November he found out that he had cancer and would spend the rest of his short life fighting to reclaim his dream. He missed weeks of classes and took his finals in the hospital because he thought he had a chance of beating it. He passed away on January 5th, just 22 years old — two days before he was to matriculate at GA Tech.
He leaves behind a lot of people who loved him — an entire community in Atlanta whose lives he enriched and the community of his refugee camp, who are dispersed around the world. This extended family is heart-broken and reeling in shock that such a beautiful strong person could be taken so senselessly. To honor his memory, we must make his unfulfilled dream our own, acting to achieve our own most audacious aspirations and working to make them real. This is what he was demonstrating to us; we are left with his lessons on how to live. Carpe diem.
Tamar Orvell writes and creates multimedia content to help individuals, teams, and organizations communicate effectively with diverse audiences. An active volunteer with at-risk communities, she is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Israel. Readers can reach her at [email protected]
Leslie Sokolow is a Co-Founder of the Atlanta Bhutanese Refugee Support Group. Her particular interest is encouraging young people to maximize their educational potential through one-on-one advising and distributing school supplies. One successful project has been establishing a Graphing Calculator Lending Library, which provides tools needed in higher math classes. She can be contacted at [email protected]
Editor’s note: The authors thank Pritam’s siblings for contributing the photos and providing descriptions and credits, and suggest to readers the following related posts.
18 asylum seekers from Bhutan, who were arrested by Nepal police on Monday evening, have continued their hunger strike even inside the prison cells for the third day.
A few among those declared ‘disqualified’ by the Nepalese Ministry of Home Affairs (Picture : Dikesh Lama/BNS)
“The have been fasting-unto-death for three days. They are determined to continue the fasting until their demand of refugee status is fulfilled,” said Dr Bhampa Rai, Chairperson of the Bhutanese Refugee Representative Repatriation Committee.
A group of rights activists including Dr Rai earlier reached Damak Police Station for inquiring the conditions of detainees.
According to Dr Rai, the detainees have told him they would even refuse to walk free even if police decide to release them.
A special squad of Nepal Police arrested those asylum seekers from Beldangi-II on Monday, accusing them of disturbing elections of camp management committees scheduled for Jan 30 and 31.
While, the agitating group has said the asylum seekers were arrested following their peaceful protests.
On Tuesday, some rights activists condemned the act of arbitrary arrest of asylum seekers and demanded unconditional release at the earliest possible.
The police said they would continue to detain them until the elections in camps are over by Thursday.
According to a high-level verification team formed by the Nepalese Ministry of Home Affairs, there are 174 Bhutanese asylum seekers who were disqualified for their refugee status on various grounds.
However, those ‘disqualified’ persons have accused the authority of intentionally cheating them by tagging them as unfit for refugee status.
Last week, they even claimed that they were disqualified since they were unable to pay heavy sums as bribes to officials during the verification process held last year.
पहिचानको माग गर्दै आन्दोलनमा उत्रिएका १८ जना भूटानी शरणार्थीहरूलाई नेपाल प्रहरीले सोमवार गिरफ्तार गरेको छ ।
भूटानी शरणार्थी शिविर, बेलडाँगीमा आमरण अनसनमा उत्रिएका उनीहरूलाई इलाका प्रहरी कार्यालय, दमकका प्रहरीहरूले गिरफ्तार गरेका हुन् ।
गिरफ्तारीपछि शरणार्थीहरूले हिरासतमै आमरण अनसन शुरु गरेको समूहका संयोजक पूर्ण गौतमले जानकारी दिएका छन् ।
आफूहरू खाँटी शरणार्थी भएको दाबी गर्दै अनसनमा बसेवापत पक्राउ गरिएका ‘परिचय पत्र छूट समूह’ का सदस्यहरूमा ११ जना महिला छन् ।
विश्वको कुनै पनि मानवले पहिचानसहित बाँच्न पाउने अधिकारलाई नेपाल सरकारले हनन गरेको भन्दै नेपाल मानवअधिकार संगठनका केन्द्रीय सदस्य तथा पूर्वाञ्चल संयोजक केपी सुवेदीले विरोध जनाएका छन् । उनले तत्काल माग पूरा गर्न र अनसनकारीहरूलाई रिहा गर्न प्रेस विज्ञप्तिमार्फत आग्रह पनि गरेका छन् ।
अनसनकारीहरूले शिविरमा बुधवार हुने शिविर व्यवस्थापन समितिको निर्वाचन बिथोल्न खोजेको आरोप लगाउँदै जिल्ला प्रशासन कार्यालयले दिएको आदेशमा प्रहरीले अनसनकारीलाई नियन्त्रणमा लिएको हो ।
परिचयको माग राखेर लामो समयदेखि आन्दोलन गर्दै आएका शरणार्थीहरूमध्ये २ हजार १ सय ६ जनाले फारम भरेकोमा एक हजार ८ सय शरणार्थीले परिचय पत्र प्राप्त गरिसकेका छन् ।
We are pleased to present BNS’s 2012 Annual Report for the first time in our history. The massive community participation for sustaining the only exiled media hub through a joint effort has alerted all of us in the team to remain fully accountable towards financial and managerial transparency. And, this annual report summarizes both our financial and operational aspects for the entire year.
When we started BNS in 2004, we were just a few. We continued facing ups and downs, but still we sustained our mission to inform you and the world community. And, from this year the community has stood as a backbone in transforming BNS into a leading news agency in near future.
We are blessed with many friends and organizations who have supported BNS along its journeys toward fair dissemination of information. Indeed, your regular donations will be critical to the young but burgeoning exiled media hub for giving it a fair and independent voice that will move us forward always.
Last but not the least, BNS solicits article contributions in all aspects related to Bhutan and the Bhutanese refugee issue. Editorial procedures in place will assure careful, fair, and prompt handling of all submitted articles before sending them online for our valued readers.
Thank you for honoring us with your continued supports!
A fire destroyed around 100 huts in Beldangi-I refugee camp Tuesday after the lunchtime. More than three dozens of huts were reported to have been dismantled while containing the fire.
Most of the huts gutted by fire are from Sector B-4, according to Beldangi camp management committee.
Desperate refugees in the scene. Photo: Tilak Niraula/BNS
According to our correspondents, the victims have claimed that they first saw the inferno from a hut owned by Nar Bahadur Khapangi. Officials are yet to verify this fact.
The road connecting Beldangi-I with the adjacent camp became a cotton thread for flocks of refugees who were running to battle the fire.
The joint battle of three fire extinguishers, Armed Police Force and refugees took over an hour to bring the mishap under their control.
The displaced refugees, who number over 700, are taking shelter in camp based schools. The cause of the fire and damages caused were not known immediately.
