The saga of Nepali circus girls in India is not over even with the return to Nepal of 12 of the 30 girls working in the Great Roman Circus in Karnelganj in Uttar Pradesh this week. Thedozen were handed over by Indian bureaucrats to Nepali officials. But these were not the girls whose parents went to India to rescue. Those have disappeared and are rumoured to be in Orissa.

Hari Pyakhurel of the Banke district administration who took charge of the girls in Gonda told us the Indian authorities refused to hand the girls over to the child rights activists who went to rescue them. They insisted that the girls be released in the presence of Nepali officials and a diplomat from the Nepali embassy in New Delhi.
The girls were angry they were being sent back. "They cursed us all the way from Gonda to Nepalganj," Pyakhurel told us.

Activists from the Butwal-based Nepal Child Welfare Society and the Indian Bachpan Bachao Andolan, who had spearheaded the rescue of the girls, say they have been left out of the picture. "India is trying to launder its tarnished image, and prove that the girls don't want to go back to Nepal," one activist told us. Indeed, it is strange that the girls who had pleaded to be rescued and whose parents had gone to India, are not among those sent back.

Only Sanumaya Lama, Asmita Lama and Nita Lama are among the 12 are girls who wanted to return. The rest: Nisha Lama, Sharmila Lama, Kalpana Lama, Thulidebi Lama, Pramila Galan and Sanimaya Lama (all between 11-14 years) have vanished. Their parents Surya Lama, Bishnumaya Moktan, Janak Lama, Thulimaya Lama are still waiting in Lucknow for word on their disappeared daughters (pictured above). A case has been filed with Indian police.

"They cry all day and all night in the hotel, I try to console them but they are really worried," says Khem Thapa of the Nepal Child Welfare Society. (Rameswor Bohara in Gonda)