Following mounting pressures from various sectors including the agitating women, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) has formed a committee to resume stalled verification process to determine refugee status.
The letter dispatched to Chief District Officer of Jhapa on Friday said that the Ministry nominated Deputy Secretary Shambhu Prasad Ghimire to address the issue of exiled Bhutanese whose status has not been determined yet. However, the letter has not specified any timeframe for the committee to resume the verification.
“The ministry has finally responded to the call of women in hunger strike,” an official at District Administration Office of Jhapa told Bhutan News Service. “We’ll immediately begin the verification process since the Deputy Secretary Ghimire will be arriving in Jhapa in a couple of days.”
A delegation from the DAO and UNHCR Damak, which had reached the venue at 10:30 p.m. yesterday, received such a response from the women, informed camp-based Armed Police Force Inspector Bijendra Rimal.
Meanwhile, the agitating women on Friday night refused to call of the hunger strike stating the Ministry’s letter failed to address their demands in a proper way and also lacked the timeframe.
As the fasting-to-death enters into the fifth day, two strikers have been hospitalized as their blood-sugar level marked a significant fall down.
“Renuka Mongar and Chandra Maya Khadka were rushed to Biratnagar for their treatment,” told Durga Devi Bista, who has been leading a seven-member women group since Tuesday.
