Two Nepali men, Suresh Prasad Singh and Nagendra Prasad Singh, have been in an Indian jail for 26 days after being arrested for buying fertilizer in the Indian market.
They were arrested on Ashar 17 and sent to jail the next day. The two men, residents of Balra-5 in Sarlahi district, were caught with diammonium phosphate (DAP) and urea fertilizer in a field in Sonbarsa, Sitamadhi district, India.
Release Delayed
According to Avinash Singh, Suresh Prasad’s son, a petition for their release was filed in court last Friday, and the hearing has been scheduled for July 31 (15 Shrawan).
‘The lawyer has assured us that they will be released after the hearing,’ Avinash says, ‘but my father and uncle will have to spend another week in jail.’
Lack of Fertilizer in Nepal
Avinash claims that many farmers in the border areas are forced to rely on the Indian market to buy fertilizer because it is not readily available in Nepal.
‘If fertilizer were available here, no one would risk going to the Indian market to buy it,’ he says.
Government Criticized
Human rights activists argue that the government should take initiative to release the two men, who were forced to go to India to buy fertilizer due to its unavailability in Nepal.
Ravi Thakur Singh, founder of Madhes Human Rights Home, says that the government should take responsibility for the farmers’ plight and ensure that they are released from jail.
‘If the government had made fertilizer available, our farmers would not have been forced to go to India and get arrested,’ Thakur says.
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