In his soon-to-be published book, former Military Secretary to the Royal Palace Bibek Kumar Shah has disclosed that the army knew about India's patronage of the Maoists. Shah has recounted an incident involving an inspector of the Armed Police Force back from commando training in Chakrata, Dehradun, who submitted a report claiming that the Maoists had been trained in the same location a month earlier.
"The sand models that the Maoists used in the attacks at Satbariya in Dang, Mangalsen in Achham and Chainpur in Sankhuwasabha were exactly the same as the ones Armed Police Force officers were trained to build in Chakrata," the inspector said in the report. He was also informed about the Maoist group that allegedly came to Chakrata from Nepal by a shopkeeper outside the training centre. The shopkeeper had remarked that the previous group had many women amongst them. A trainer, too, let slip the intention of India to train the armies of both sides.
India trained the LTTE rebels, the Mukti Bahini of Bangladesh, and the Khampa rebels of Tibet in the same complex at Chakrata, Establishment 22, which was built by the Americans. Shah has also disclosed in his book that former DIG of police, Lal Bahadur Thapa, was instructed to carry out a covert investigation in agreement with former King Gyanendra after they came to know about the Maoists being trained in Chakrata.
But Thapa, an expert on the Chakrata area, reportedly went missing and Shah was asked to resign from his post soon after the decision to investigate was taken. King Gyanendra asked for Shah's resignation in October 2003.
Another sensational revelation in Shah's book involves a police officer who served in the United Nation Mission in Kosovo. According to this officer, "A senior Indian IPS officer worked in the same sector as me and he told me that everything in Nepal will happen as India wants.
He said that an army officer in the palace was sacked after he came to know about India giving army training to the Maoists. They mobilised Surya Bahadur Thapa, one of their men, to influence the King to remove the officer."
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