NEW DELHI, June 25: A new controversy is simmering at the Indo-Nepal border and it is not about terrorists or arms. The Nepal government is refusing to accept the immigrant sex workers India wants to send back.

Maharashtra Government has already written to Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) ``about the reluctance of the Nepal government to take back 15 Nepalese prostitutes, all below 18, as they are suspected to have AIDS.''

Sources said that two out of these 15 girls have full-blown AIDS and one of them is hospitalised for treatment of tuberculosis. The girls, who are at present lodged in a remand home in Pune, were rounded up last year by the Mumbai police.

``We were able to send back about 150 of them with the help of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and they were sent back to their homes. But later, several of them tested HIV-positive following which the Nepal government developed cold feet about the return of the rest,'' said an official.

According to officials, though the Nepal government has not refused ``officially and is only dilly-dallying,'' the NGOs in Nepal which had been instrumental in rehabilitating the earlier lot are now reluctant as ``the Nepal government has threatened to cut-off their grants if they bring back these girls.''

What perhaps complicated the issue, according to officials, were the adverse media reports in Nepal about the girls sent earlier. ``There were a lot of adverse editorials in Nepalese papers about how these girls had come back with AIDS and would now become a source of infection,'' said an official.

Speaking to The Indian Express, the Nepalese ambassador to India, R Thakur, admitted that there were ``problems'' in the deportation of the girls.

``AIDS is the problem in taking these girls back. We are at a loss as to how to manage them. We can't send them back into the society immediately as there might be criticism about importing AIDS. Moreover, our earlier experience has shown us that most of these girls want to go back,'' said Thakur.

When asked whether it means that the Nepal government has decided to leave the girls to their fate, Thakur said they were ``trying to work out an employment programme for rehabilitating the prostitutes.''

Social workers said that most of the girls are below 15 and want to go back but there are a few who have now become major and are not really interested in leaving.

Hamstrung by the lack of funds, Nepal government's reluctance to take back the girls have put the authorities in a quandary. ``We are trying for a separate home for them. Our problems have been compounded by the High Court disallowing AIDS test for these girls.

Now one of them is seriously ill while another one has delivered a baby. We cannot test either the baby or the girls for HIV,'' said an official.

Sources in the MEA confirmed that a letter had been received from the Maharashtra government and the issue taken up diplomatically. ``We have reminded Nepal and diplomatic pressure continues,'' said an MEA official.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.