The unpleasant incident has thrown a litmus test at Prime Minister (PM) Madhav Kumar Nepal who has publicly admitted that occupying the country’s top executive post would mean nothing to him if he fails to maintain the law and order situation. We cannot turn back the wheels of time but the PM can certainly prove that he means business by bringing the culprits to book and, more importantly, making absolutely sure that such incidents do not repeat in the future.
If the PM is honest about his commitment, punishing the guilty shouldn’t be a task considering that Gurung has identified Ain Bahadur Magar, valley in-charge of Youth Force, as the one who shot at him. Eyewitnesses confirmed Magar along with Purushottam Kadari, ANNFSU’s presidential candidate in the Free Students’ Union, led the attack.
If the PM fails to act, and act fast, he will lose all moral authority to ask the UCPN (Maoist) to renounce violence while, at the same time, giving a huge boost to the culture of impunity, something that the Maoists championed during their nine-month-long tenure. If those involved in this incident are not punished, with what moral standing can this government ask the Maoists to hand over the murderers of Ram Hari Shrestha and Prachanda Thaiba, among others?
It’s really unfortunate that violence as a means of settling disputes is slowly becoming a reality of Nepali life and political parties who should have been telling the Maoists that there is no alternative to peaceful politics are instead trying to match them blow by blow. Criminalization of youths in a country that is already in a brittle state will only further weaken it. This must be immediately stopped.
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