'Justice, Justice, Justice'

WITHOUT F EAR OR FAVOUR Nepal’s largest selling English daily Vol XXVIII No. 347 | 8 pages | Rs.5 O O Printed simultaneously in Kathmandu, Biratnagar, Bharatpur and Nepalgunj 22.7 C -2.4 C Saturday, February 13, 2021 | 01-11-2077 Dhankuta Jumla ‘JUSTICE, JUSTICE, JUSTICE’ Fed up with inaction, women march to demand end to impunity POST PHOTO: ANGAD DHAKAL Activists stage a rally at Bhadrakali, Kathmandu on Friday, demanding justice for victims of violence against women and end to all forms of discrimination against women. SAMIKSHA BARAL been raped before being strangled. their safety and their rights,” Khatri told doing in her capacity. reported, but nothing has changed. From KATHMANDU, FEB 12 The Baitadi rape and murder incident the Post over the phone from Jajarkot. Women led the rally, dubbed “women’s villages to cities, we all are screaming, comes as a grim reminder of a similar Apart from leading protests, Khatri has march”, from Basantapur before it con- but it makes no difference to those in For the past week, Bijaya Khatri has been case more than two and a half years ago. been regularly organising programmes in verged at Bhadrakali. Their plan to march power in Singha Durbar and Baluwatar.” on the streets of Jajarkot–every day with- Nirmala Pant, 13, was found dead in local schools to encourage her friends to up to Singha Durbar was thwarted. Rising number of cases of violence out fail. She is joined by her friends and Kanchanpur on July 27, 2018. Police had speak up. “Justice. Justice. Justice,” the partici- against women and girls has been a cause some other campaigners. They want their concluded that someone had raped and She was on the streets of Jajarkot on pants chanted in the names of all the vic- for concern in Nepal, with rights activists calls to end violence against women and killed her. But the perpetrator(s) of the Friday as well, participating in a demon- tims of violence against women. constantly calling on the government to impunity to be heard. crime still remains unknown. stration demanding justice for the teen- “From the murder of Nirmala Pant to do something about it. “We won’t stop questioning and demand- The family of the Baitadi teenage girl, age girl from Baitadi and an end to vio- the similar recent incident in Baitadi, we Nepal Police records show that 2,144 ing justice,” said the 22-year-old youth who had gone to school never to return, lence against women. have not got justice yet. Every day, around cases of rape and 687 cases of attempted activist who has been leading protests in fears that the culprit(s) may go unpunished. And some 320 kilometres from her six-seven girls and women, some of them rape were reported in the fiscal year 2019- her hometown ever since a teenage girl in Khatri, a medical student in Bangladesh, home district, in the Capital Kathmandu, elderly, are raped,” said Hima Bista, an 20 alone, an increase from 1,480 cases of Baitadi was found dead on February 4. was equally active two years ago as well, hundreds of women, civil society mem- entrepreneur and women’s rights activist, rape and 727 cases of attempted rape in Based on the post-mortem report, police demanding justice for Nirmala. bers and rights activists held a mass rally, while addressing the rally at Bhadrakali. the previous fiscal year. have concluded that the 12th grader had “Girls and women must speak up for amplifying just what Khatri has been “These are merely numbers that are >> Continued on page 2 The legacy of the decade-long ‘people’s war’ Former fighters don’t deny the gains of the sacrifices but wonder whether the political achievements have indeed brought socio-economic transformation in the country. leaders have held various ministerial portfolios in the last one and a half decades, but for many of those who were part of the war, life continues to be tough, said Darji. The Maoists launched their “people’s war” on February 13, 1996 to what they called establish “a rule of the proletariat”. The Maoists called for a secular republican state, and a constituent assembly to draw up a new constitution. At the heart of their agenda was socio-political transformation of the state. Darji does not say that the “people’s war” was a waste, as it helped bring massive changes in the society. But she denies that the state has achieved the desired socio-political changes. Bishwo Bhakta Dulal, a former Maoist leader, who deserted the Maoist party after Dahal decided to merge it with Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s CPN-UML, said except the republic set-up, the Maoist war failed to achieve anything else. “Other political demands with which the party had waged the war– concerns and plight of peasants, workers, janajatis–are yet to be ful- POST FILE PHOTO filled in a true sense,” Dulal told the After the peace deal, 1,460 of the 19,600 Maoist fighters were integrated into the Nepal Army. Post. “Now the republican set-up and the already distorted secularism are TIKA R PRADHAN mainstream politics in 2006, Darji was also under threat from Oli.” KATHMANDU, FEB 12 one of hundreds of those who were Dulal has now joined hands with disqualified as Maoist fighters under former Maoist leaders Mohan Baidya, Laxmi Darji was 11 years old in 2000. It the verification by the United Nations Netra Bikram Chand and Rishi Kattel had been four years since the Maoists Mission in Nepal. When she returned and announced a “strategic united had launched the “people’s war”, an from a camp where the verification front” to fight for “people’s republic/ armed struggle against the state. process was conducted, all that she scientific socialism” which calls for When she joined in, she remembers had with her was the tag of “a minor.” shunning the existing parliamentary the older ones talking about “mukti She currently lives with her young- system. wa mrityu” (liberation or death), she er brother, who works as a security Baidya and Chand left Maoist party said. guard, in Koteshwor. in 2012, accusing Dahal of leaving the A few years later she was told that “I was probably the youngest to be “people’s war” halfway and deviating they were “fighting for a better life”. injured in the Maoist war–I had just from the Maoist ideology and forming “It took us a few years more to entered my teenage,” she said. She CPN-Maoist. Two years later, Chand understand what that ‘liberation or was injured twice during as many parted ways with Baidya and formed death’ refrain meant–or at least we battles with security forces—in 2003 in his own Nepal Communist Party, in thought we understood,” said Darji, Khimadi in Kailali district and in 2005 which he does not have the “Maoist” now 32. in Manma of Kalikot. tag, to launch “unified people’s revolu- The war, the struggle and the libera- Saturday marks the 25th anniversa- tion”. Kattel has his own Nepal tion dream, however, was short-lived. ry of the “people’s war” which ended Communist Party registered with the A year after the Maoists joined after at least 13,000 deaths and thou- Election Commission. sands of disappearances. After the party joined mainstream While the transitional justice politics, the Maoist movement lost process to deliver justice to the steam. Their demand of a new consti- victims of the armed conflict has tution through a Constituent been dragging on for the last 15 Assembly was fulfilled, but when it years, for people like Darji, who was promulgated in 2015, the society were part of the war and were was largely divided. Sections of the later disqualified, everything Nepali society opposed the constitu- looks bleak. tion. Bhattarai, one of the key figures Both of their top leaders– of the Maoist movement, left the party Pushpa Kamal Dahal and and broke away with Dahal a week Baburam Bhattarai–became after Nepal announced its new consti- prime ministers. Dahal led the tution. government twice. Many other >> Continued on page 2 C M Y K SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2021 | 02 NATIONAL Draft directives to regulate social media Ministry of Social Development in give authorities power to define decency Sudurpaschim delays funds Provisions of the directives, to be enforced by the Department of Information Technology, are from the controversial Information Technology Bill which is in Parliament. for Saipal eye camp BIJAY TIMALSINA on information technology law, said it will register themselves with the gov- Aryal criticised this provision say- KATHMANDU, FEB 12 is questionable that the provisions of ernment. This could potentially lead ing that it enables authorities to seek Delay in the release of total budget has led to a bill registered in Parliament are to bans on popular social media out- the personal information of social The Ministry of Communication and included in a directive. “The provi- lets in the country, they say. media users without court orders to non-payment of the expenses incurred in the management Information Technology has prepared sions of a bill are there to be discussed If it is proven that a registered do so. Further, as “public decency” a draft of the directive to regulate the in Parliament,” Aryal said.“The gov- social media has broken existing laws and “morality” are not clearly defined, and treatment of patients during the eye camp. use and registration of social media ernment can’t include such provisions and provisions included in the direc- the government can take action in the country.

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