Why Pushpakamal Dahal cancelled his visit to Australia?

By Our Correspondent Cancellation of Australia visit of chairman of CPN-Maoist Centre Pushpa Kamal Dahal at the last moment last week has been judged with suspicion. Though Dahal said he cancelled the trip due to the political circumstances in home, news reports suggested otherwise, They claimed he decided to not visit Australia fearing arrest there. Local as well as international online news reported that Dahal was forced to cancel his visit when a group of Australian human rights activists lodged complaints citing Dahal’s poor human record during the Maoist insurgency which resulted in the deaths of 17,000 Nepalese and displacement of thousands of people. An email circulated by the office of the New South Wales Premier also proved this. The Maoist boss was to inaugurate a convention of the People’s Progressive Forum, the party’s foreign wing in Sydney. But Dahal abandoned his trip following the circulation of the email. Dahal and other Maoist leaders had not visited western nations after 2012 fearing that they might be arrested as Colonel Kumar Lama. Lama was arrested in London in 2013 for his human rights records during the same insurgency. Lama, who was serving in the UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan, wasarrested in London during his vacation tour on charges of torturing two persons in an army barrack.