The Armed Police under the command of Ex-Police Minister Khum Bahadur Khadka have massacred at least eight citizens on April 8 in Dang, Western Nepal. This is another anti-peace process massacre after the heart-pounding Gaur massacre in March 2007 when 29 civilians were killed in cold blood by Upendra Yadav-led criminal gangs from India and Nepal.
Dang-based Police Superintendent Deepak Thapa told reporters that the police had to open fire in order to protect themselves. But Dang-based journalist Hiralal K.C. gave the information that while Maoist cadres captured 33 suspected election mercenaries mobilized by Ex-Police Minister Khum Bahadur Khadka, the Armed Police Force unnecessarily fired at Maoist cadres with the latest automatic weapons. According to journalist K.C., many political workers are still missing as the local administration imposed a curfew.
But the accounts of local eyewitnesses are different. They said that the incident took place at Lamahi Bazar before the eyes of the public. They complained that Armed Police acted as they were the private army serving only the ex-police minister without any consideration for their obligations to public security. They opened fire as soon as they sighted Maoist cadres on vehicles, locals say.
Similarly, Janadisha national daily of April 9 has stated that a great number of professional armed hooligans were mobilized in Dang where Khum Bahadur Khadka is one of the Nepali Congress candidates. As the Nepalis know him as one of the most corrupt leaders of Nepal, they even do not want to hear his name in the district. He was jailed several months due to a corruption scandal. Besides, media had published reports that he is a notorious gold smuggler. Some even accuse him of being an arms smuggler.
In the morning today, Maoist youth leader Ganesh Pun told media that many of his party cadres have been missing. He guessed that the number of deaths might go up since it was a sudden and one-sided firing with a latest automatic weapon.
In the mean time, Chairman Prachanda of the Communist Party of Nepal (Moist) has appealed for public restraint for making the April-10 constitution assembly poll a success as it is indispensable for the ongoing peace process equally successful.
Observers think the Nepali Congress has undersized itself by using such a publicly notorious person doing politics through criminal gangs.
According to some UML party workers of Dang, Khum Bahadur Khadka had won elections in the parliamentary elections by mobilizing thousands of mercenaries who rigged heavily in his favor. During previous elections too, he had killed people at the time of campaigning.
Besides, Khum Bahadur Khadka opposed people’s mandate of federal republic and stood in favor of feudal monarchy.
According to Rajan Chaudhary of Dang, the candidature of Khadka has agitated the working class people there because they suffered fierce suppression and injustices under him previously.
So far, even human rights groups and professionally registered election observers have not been able to produce reports on so many incidents in a manner free from party-loyal blindness.
The Nepalis, especially the working class people, are in a rebellious mood on the eve of the constituent assembly polls because feudal mechanisms have created barriers to the peace process.
Reactionaries of Nepal have threatened ordinary and illiterate masses in rural parts of Nepal that if they vote for Maoist candidates, they are likely to be marked as supporters of terrorists and might be shot by the state forces in the near future. They have spread rumor among such ignorant people that electronic devices installed underground will record whom they vote. The election commission has issued a public notice that the voting will be secret and nobody will ever know whom one votes for.
Observation of different constituencies shows that people generally want to see Nepal change accelerating through the ex-rebel leadership. They have expressed their disappointment with the previously ruling parties the Nepali Congress and the UML.