October 17, 2000

Bigu, Dolakha: A rarely-used and almost non-policed trail traversing through towering mountains’ cliffs in the remote northern part of this district is serving as a safe passage for smugglers dodging the custom point at Tatopani — near the Nepal-China border.

The smuggling activities are evident at broad day-light as businessmen hire porters and local people to carry their goods through the secret route that leads to Barabise Bazaar in Sindhupalchowk District. At least six such groups used the route to smuggle in imported goods from the Tibet Autonomous Region of China during the first week this month.

On October 2, a group of such porters carrying electronic goods including TV sets, VCR, among others arrived at Dolangsa. After hardly resting in the village for few minutes, these porters vanished in the nearby rhododendron jungle with their smuggled goods.

“This has become a routine feature here. Sometimes they even bring big refrigerators,” said Zangbu Sherpa, a local at the village. “In the beginning, the locals used to be inquisitive about the goods they brought. Now everyone knows what is going on.”

After the smuggled goods reach the Barabise Bazaar, they are whisked off to Kathmandu in vehicles — most of them are either carried by containers or by hired professionals disguised as passengers in buses and lorries.

Two huge rocks — known as Devdhunga atop a hill — that can be sighted from here is through where the locals enter into this Valley that hosts a village Bigu — renowned for its Bigu Monastery with 60 Buddhist nuns.

After a stiff down-hill climb, the route passes through places like Tewa, Kedorji, Dolangsa and Karthala before finally reaching Barabise.

This was the same route Nepalese businessmen used to trade with Tibet in the not so distant past. The trade-route continues to be here — but with illegal activities. “Smuggling is quite frequent in this route,” said Nanorbu Sherpa, Chairman of Ward Number 1 in Dolangsa Village of Gorthali Village Development Committee.

“Before it used to happen only in the night, nowadays the smugglers do not hesitate to transport the smuggled goods even at day time.”

So frequent smuggling has become in this route that some locals in the villages enroute have even begun to rely on the smugglers to earn their livelihood. These locals hike to the northern mountains and carry back the smuggled goods to Barabise for businessmen.

And what makes smugglers so daring to carry out their activities even at day-light is the virtually non-existing policing in the route. With not a single police post in the area, smuggling simply goes on facing no obstruction. The last police post in the area was at Bighu till last year.

“We have no idea what is happening in the route since there is no police movement there,” said Subash Chaudhary, Deputy Superintendent of Police at the Barabise Police Station. “We cannot monitor the area because of the Maoist problem.”

That is the reason, according to locals, why police-patrolling has been confined to the Barabise town in the west and in Charikot in the south of this valley.

Not that the local administration is unaware of the situation. Bhanubhakta Pokhrel, Chief District Officer of Sindhupalchowk District admits of having heard about the smuggling activities in this route. “But this issue needs joint effort to be tackled. We have also held talks with the C.D.O. of Dolakha District. But it is the public who should inform us about the activities.”

But even when information on smuggling has reached the authorities, nothing has been done. “Once we were tipped off about a smuggling route to Dolakha Bazaar,” said DSP Chaudhary. “We discussed with the CDO’s office on whether to mobilise a monitoring team. But, we were told that there has been no information in this regard. Therefore, the attempt was abandoned.”

Mobile teams of Revenue Investigation Department have time and again seized smuggled goods in the Arniko Highway — linking Kathmandu to Tatopani via Barabise. “Most of these seizures have been from passengers,” confirmed Durga Prasad Rai, Deputy Director General at the Revenue Investigation Department.

And the majority of these passengers are no other than the hired ones of the smugglers trying to get the goods to Kathmandu. These “labourers” are readily available at Barabise — to carry the smuggled goods either from the Nepal-Tibet border through the smuggling route to Barabise, or to Kathmandu. “Businessmen often take these porters from here and smuggle in the imported goods,” said a restaurateur at Barabise who has been residing there for the last twenty years. “There are many persons here who take charge of smuggling in the goods using porters and the businessmen use them to get their jobs done.”

How much loss has the national exchequer incurred due to the rampant smuggling through this route is something unanswered to date. But going by the increasing import trade volume, the figure must be very high. The Tatopani Custom point collected 600 million Rupees as revenue from the imported goods last year — up from a little above 280 million Rupees in 1998.

In the last two months, the custom point collected a little above 55 million Rupees as revenue.