Impunity bares its ugliest face in Dailekh district

PRAKASH ADHIKARI
DAILKEH, AUG 08 - 2011

This Thursday is the seventh death anniversary of journalist Dekendra Raj Thapa. The day will also mark a dark milestone of impunity and a weak state of press freedom in the country.

Thapa, who was the Dailekh correspondent for state-owned Radio Nepal, was abducted and subsequently murdered by Maoist rebels on Aug 11, 2004. It was only three years ago that Thapa’s widow Laxmi filed a complaint with police against the murderers of her husband.

One of the main accused, Bam Bahadur Khadka, is presently at the Dasharathpur-based sixth division camp of the UCPN (Maoist) People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in Surkhet district. Two other accused—Keshav Khadka and Laxmiram Gharti—are still in Dailekh working as Maoist functionaries.

District Police Office (DPO), Dailekh, is yet to interrogate these three suspects.

“The suspects are moving about freely and every time we press the police to arrest and interrogate them, we get the same answer— a police team has been mobilised,” said Puskar Thapa, Dailekh chairman of the Federation of Nepali Journalists.

A source at the DPO said pressure from the Maoists and the party leaders has affected the investigation.

It is learned that police in Dailekh have a low success rate when it comes to solving crimes involving the Maoists. The people, who set the Paltada-based offices of Upper Karnali Hydro Electricity Project on fire two months ago, were suspected to be Maoist party men. Involvement of Maoist activists has also been suspected in last week’s murder of a postman at Kusapani. Police have not made any arrest in both the incidents so far. A police officer said that the DPO received many calls from the district and central leaders of the Maoist party in connection with the postman murder case. Karna Bahadur Basnet, district joint in-charge of the Maoists, denied that the party ever influenced police investigation.

“The police are blaming others to conceal their incompetence. It is merely a ploy to disrepute our leaders,” he said.

Chief District Offier Basudev Dahal also claimed that he was never pressurised from the higher-ups or politicians in crime investigation.



Posted on: 2011-08-09 08:22
http://www.ekantipur.com/the-kathmandu-post/2011/08/08/nation/impunity-bares-its-ugliest-face-in-dailekh-district/224965.html