KATHMANDU: Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Yogesh Bhattarai has indirectly refuted the Prime Minister KP Oli’s statement on ‘Ram and Ayodhya’.

At today’s meeting of the International Relations Committee, the minister said comments should not be made in a way to hurt the cultural, religious, linguistic and ethnic sensitivity.

“Fact-based expressions should be made in a balanced manner. Our imbalanced expressions invite enmity,” he said.

He added that the Nepal government was ever cautious of Nepal’s relations with the neighboring countries and their sensitivities.

Admitting that the heritages of archeological and historical importance have not been studied, researched and documented as much as expected, he said the government now has put this on priority.

“The universities and academia could be mobilized for the research”, he said while arguing the government alone could not solely do the research and study works.

The government was willing to preserve the documents collected by Yogi Naraharinath and dialogue was held with the concerned sides, he said, however, it did not lead to any conclusion in concrete.

The minister said further efforts are underway to have the next round of dialogue to bring the documents to the National Archive.

PM Oli had drawn flack both inside and outside Nepal for his controversial statement that ‘real Ayodhya’ is in Nepal and Ram was a Nepali.

Speaking at a program organized on the occasion of Bhanu Jayanti at PM’s residence, PM Oli had stated that some distortion of facts could have gone in the claim of India’s Ayodhya as the birthplace of Lord Ram.

“Although the real Ayodhya lies at Thori in the west of Birgunj, India have claimed the Indian site as the birthplace of Lord Ram,” PM Oli had said, “We also believe that deity Sita got married to Prince Ram of India. Actually, Ayodhya is a village lying west of Birgunj.”