Even though Nepal itself has not suffered any terror attacks, it has for long been used as a transit point to enter India because of the long (1,750 km), unguarded and porous border that it shares with India.
Official sources in the Intelligence community feel that the coming together of the Left alliance into power is not good news for India as former Prime Minister K.P. Oli, who is likely to become the PM again, and most of the alliance leaders, are close to China, unlike the Nepal Congress, which was pro-India.
“We need a very proactive and responsive government in Nepal when it comes to anti-terrorism measures as it is frequently used by operatives to enter India or use Nepal as a base to carry out anti-India activities. In the last few years the cooperation between the two countries, at least on the issue of counter-terrorism has been very good as you can see from the number of terror operatives that we have arrested or deported from Nepal. In view of the present political situation in Nepal, we do not want a situation to arise where, acting under the instructions of a third country, Nepal stops cooperating with us and starts “coming-up” as a safe house to carry out anti-India activities,” an official source in the security establishment said. Pakistan’s spy agency, ISI, has a long record of using Nepal as a “transit base” to carry out anti-India operations by using terror organisations like Lashkar and Jaish-e-Mohammad. China, which supported the Left-Communist alliance in Nepal, has for the last one year now, stopped India’s effort to designate Jaish Chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist in the United Nations.
Pakistan based underworld criminal Dawood Ibrahim, who at one time, wielded massive influence in the Himalayan country, still uses Nepal as a base to oversee its operation in India. “It took us a lot of effort to make it difficult for anti-India people from using Nepal as a base to carry out subversive activities and that was only possible because we got a lot of support from the Nepalese establishments and we just hope that in view of a ‘pro-China’ party coming to power, that support does not stop,” the official said.