Return Uttarakhand and Sikkim to Nepal, demands NGO. Starts signature campaign

A Nepalese non-governmental organisation (NGO) has launched a signature campaign demanding the return of territory that Nepal lost to British India through the historic Treaty of Sagauli of 1815.

The campaign was initiated here by the Greater Nepal Nationalist Front on Friday (January 11) coinciding with National Unity Day, according to 'The Rising Nepal', a government-owned national daily.

Signatures will be collected from within and outside the country, and the campaign will continue until coming mid-April, according to the front's chairman Fanindra Nepal.

Nepalese territories including Darjeeling were handed to the British East India Company as concessions under the treaty which was signed in 1816 on the conclusion of the Anglo-Nepalese War.

Under the treaty, Nepalese-controlled territory that was ceded included all areas that the king of Nepal had won in earlier wars such as the kingdom of Sikkim in the east and Kumaon and Garhwal in the west.

The signatures collected will be handed over to the Nepal president, UN secretary general, the five members of the UN Security Council, and to the SAARC secretary general, according to the report.

(Except the headline, the report is as it was published by Press Trust of India)

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