Kathmandu, July 16 - After marauding elephant herds created bad blood between Nepal's border villages and India, now big cats are threatening to strain ties between the two neighbours.

Nepal's lawmakers are concerned about reports that India's Uttar Pradesh state, which borders part of Nepal in the south, is planning a tiger reserve along the open border.

'There is a possibility of the tigers straying into Nepal's border villages,' said Nepali legislator Padam Lal Bishwokarma. 'What is even more alarming is that there are indications the proposed tiger park extends right inside Nepal.'

Last month, after a spate of reports in the Nepali media that India's border patrols were wreaking havoc in Nepal's border villages in Dang district, Bishwokorma led a team of seven more MPs from the major parties to the western region for a first-hand assessment.

'In the forests of Bankata-Bharsaiya, we found the trees have been painted yellow,' the Maoist lawmaker told IANS. 'It was obviously some sort of marker.'

The parliamentarian delegation held talks with Shakti Singh Thakur, assistant commander of the 18th Gorkha Company of the Indian Shasatra Seema Bal across the border, to discover the reason. They were told it was done by the forest division of Uttar Pradesh in preparation for the tiger reserve.

'It is an obvious encroachment on Nepal's territory,' the Nepali MP said.