MAHENDRANAGAR, Kanchanpur, Aug 9: Indian side has stopped road construction in the disputed area at Nepal-India border pillar No 3 at Brahmadev in Kanchnapur following an agreement between authorities of the two countries. 

On Wednesday, a team from the Armed Police Force had reached the construction site and asked the Indian authority to stop the construction. 

Under the construction, the Indian workers were digging the land to lay a hume-pipe on Nepali territory around 50 meters from the border. 

A dispute occurred after the Indian side tried to expand road connectivity in the area where the border pillar no 3 has gone missing for long. It may be noted that earlier some months ago, the joint survey team had following the survey agreed to recognize the step of Mahakali river dam as the border. 

The dispute escalated after India had started constructing the road around 1,300 metres from Tanakpur barrage towards the foot of river dam. Of the 1,300 meters, around 1,000 meteres from the Tanakpur barrage falls on the border, and approximately 300 meters (western towards Brahmadev bazaar) on the Nepali territory. 

Ward-9 Chairperson of Bhimdutta municipality, Ram Nath informed that India has initiated expanding its road encroaching upon around 200 metres Nepali land without even coordination. 

There has been a persisting dispute after the disappearance of border pillar number 3. The survey team had presumably concluded that the disappeared border pillar lies in the same border area where the road was being built. 

The local people resorted to protest the hegemonic construction drive of the Indian side in the border area, said Gagan Singh Karki, a local. 

"The border pillar no 3 was located in the mid of the Mahakali River in the year around 1992. I had taken my cattle for grazing nearby the pillar then," he recalls. He further asserted that the Indian side has been encroaching upon the Nepali territory after the disappearance of the border pillar. 

The border pillar which was located in the mid part of the river disappeared in the course of the construction of the Tanakpur bridge and dam. "We had informed the local administration and municipality mayor about the unruly construction of the road from Indian side encroaching upon the no-men's land and the Nepal-India border," said ward Chair Nath. 

Acting on the information, a team of security agencies headed by Kanchanpur Chief District Officer Kumar Bahadur Khadka on Tuesday had inspected the road construction site. "The Indian side did not coordinate with us before the road construction", CDO Khadka said. 

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