Baban Singh, whom the Nepali police had registered in the most wanted list for his leadership in massacring 28 civilians at Gaur in Rautahat district on 21 March 2007, has escaped legal actions because of the veto that he obtained out of his position as the independent Constituent Assembly (CA) member.
Singh was elected the CA member through the CA poll held on 10 April 2008. The Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (MJF), the Terai Madhesh Democratic Party (TMDP), and the Nepali Congress (NC) had indirectly supported him and had campaigned to persuade the district’s illiterate masses to vote for him saying that people could live safely if he was elected. The main motive behind these rightist parties’ campaign for Singh was that they wanted to use Baban Singh as a tool against progressive forces in the district.
Singh’s family members and his relatives had gone door-to-door and asked for an opportunity to save Baban Singh whose innocence they advocated. Although He was underground at the time of the election, he won the election with the indirect campaign of mainly the three parties.
However, the Nepali police had been searching for him. Nepali security officials had admitted that Baban Singh was also found involved in the Kathmandu Bomb blasts that killed three civilians in the same year.
When the Election Commission asked Baban Singh to collect his CA member’s certificate after being, he hesitated to immediately come to Nepal from Bihar. However, when the major parties that supported him assured him of full freedom and impunity, he came to Nepal.
Most surprisingly, the people who voted for him in Rautahat district knew only very late from the mainstream mass media that the Nepali police had been trying to arrest him.
Middle class people in Kathmandu believe that it was not possible for security authorities to remain uninformed about who Baban Singh was and how he was elected. Yet they must have deliberately let him free because of some kind of veto power used in favor of him.
After widespread criticism from ordinary people that the government was keeping a warranted suspect by paying him heavily, Birgunj police arrested him on January 18 to show that the police did their duty. He was not arrested for his alleged involvement in Gaur carnage and Kathmandu blasts. He was arrested there for his alleged involvement in the murder of two businessmen in Birgunj. However, police officials say that the government as well as the court did not allow them to extend his custody days for further investigation. He has been released now after three days’ detention. People believe it was pre-arranged.
Additional information from sources based in Gaur is coming in. Baban Singh is also affiliated to the Terai Army that took responsibility for the Kathmandu blasts in 2007. Besides, some villagers even admitted that they would feel safe if Baban Singh could be made a respectable man comfortably living in Kathmandu because previously he was also involved in leading robbery gangs composed of both Bihari and Nepali robbers.
With this type of impunity to an apparent suspect whom the country’s police put in the most wanted list, more criminals are likely to become MPs and ministers in Nepal in the near future.
The accelerating criminalization of the political sector in Nepal will further heighten conflicts and violence in the country.
Almost all the political parties in Nepal have adopted violence as a compulsory method of practicing politics so far. There is not a single day without confrontations and violence in the name of this or that political ideology.