30 civilians clamped ‘ngolop’, sentences nine years jail term

Thimphu, December 09: The Samtse district court has given its verdict in favor of sending 30 southern Bhutanese to jail for five to nine years on charges of involving in seditious activities.

The court after five months long proceedings sent 30 people, who are blamed to have joined the Communist Party of Bhutan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist), to jail.

The accused were sentenced in accordance with the provisions of the National Security Act of Bhutan, 1992, and the Penal Code of Bhutan, 2004.

The government mouth piece Kuensel quoted the court officials saying that using a religious façade called the Srijana Sanskrit Sangathan, the group had held several meetings to discuss Maoist ideology and to collect money and food grain for the Communist Party of Bhutan. People who attended the meetings were made to fill up membership forms.

The meetings were held in Katarey and Ugyentse villages in Samtse where they are accused to have designed plans to recruit local people in their mission. Further the court said they have set up camps in the forest for armed training to locals on use of weapons and explosives.

The court said, two Class XII students, had connected with the Bhutanese in exile to attend briefing sessions on Political and Ideology Training conducted by the cadres of the CPB. The government also claimed that the Nepal Maoist and Communist Party of Nepal, Bhutan Peoples’ Party, Druk National Congress, and Bhutan Gorkha National Liberation Front were also involved in imparting training and briefing these people for use of arms.

Some of the defendants are also accused to have supported Bhutanese in exile, and forming secret groups like Pragathisel Sanskriti Pariwar, Srijana Sanskriti Pariwar and Saipatri Sanskriti Pariwar which are formed to strengthen the communist ideology in the country.

Police claimed they recovered detonators and other materials used for making improvised explosive devices, membership forms of the Party and All Bhutan Revolutionary Student Union, note-books containing revolutionary lyrics and coded membership lists, coded names and addresses of donors and five numbers of Nepali textbooks on Communist Party from the arrested people.

The police had arrested 39 people. The status of other nine still is unknown. Bhutan News Service