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Nepal furious with Jain panel report

The Jain Commission interim report on Rajiv Gandhi's assassination has not only wrought political turmoil in India but has angered neighbouring Nepal for ruffling royalty in the Himalayan kingdom.

The furore was raised by India Today's December 8 cover story entitled Reckless Revelations.

According to the report, a letter, purportedly written by the Research and Analysis Wing, cites ''unverified information'' that Nepal's queen Aishwarya Rajya Laxmi Devi Shah had asked King Birendra's honorary aide-de-camp ''to arrange for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi for which Rs 10 million would be made available''.

The extracts evoked a strong protest from the Nepalese government, resulting in Foreign Minister Kamal Thapa handing over a note verbale to Indian Ambassador K V Rajan.

The Nepal government has said the report was published with the ''ill-intention of damaging the age-old cordial relations'' between the countries.

''His majesty's government strongly condemns the malicious act of publishing such a baseless, fictitious and misleading news report,'' an official communique said.

Following this, Rajan issued a statement in which the Indian government categorically disassociated itself from the newsweekly report ''based on completely unverified and unsubstantiated information''.

''This insinuation should be treated with the contempt that it deserves,'' the ambassador's statement said.

The relevant extracts from the newsmagazine were carried by at least three Nepali newsweeklies yesterday, with two of them also displaying photocopies of the report.

The Indian intelligence agency is understood to have written this report in October 1989, when Indo-Nepal relations were at a low as a result of ''a unilateral embargo'' imposed on the landlocked Himalayan kingdom by India, when Rajiv Gandhi was the prime minister.

The Nepalese government has urged New Delhi to take ''all appropriate measures to dispel any doubts or misunderstanding that such a false and fabricated information may cause among the people of the two countries''.

UNI

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