The government has never addressed this problem seriously. It has also not made public the report prepared by the high-level commission it formed to carry out a probe into the murder of my husband, Ram Hari Shrestha. They won´t even share the report with us. We smell a rat in the government´s stated commitment to punish Kham and the other criminals – all from the Maoist party -- who were behind my husband´s murder.
After news about Kham being awarded a berth in the Maoist central committee came out, we tried to meet the Prime Minister, who is also the Maoist Chairman. But we are not being allowed to even talk to him on the phone. The Maoist party has a long tradition of honoring criminals. This has been the case with the murder of my husband also. I feel that Prachanda´s hand is behind the murder. If not, why has he honored Kham despite knowing that he is a criminal? He has already accepted that Kham is a criminal. Is Kham more powerful that Prachanda? Why does he honor a criminal with a top party post? If he could hand over to the police other members of his party indicted for the murder, why couldn´t he do the same with Kham. I think Prachanda is afraid that turning over Kham to the police may uncover his own involvement in the murder. We want the satisfaction of seeing the guilty punished. If you hide one crime, the criminal gets emboldened to commit a thousand other crimes. It is very unfortunate that the state has given protection to a criminal. The people should be made aware of this fact. Otherwise, these kinds of incidents will be repeated in future.
A copy of an agreement signed between Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Ramila Shrestha and Gyan Kumar Shrestha, who led series of street protest against Ram Hari`s murder last year. In the agreement, Dahal has pledged to take stern action against Kali Bahadur Kham among other accused in the murder.Dahal never takes any issue seriously until and unless there is mounting pressure from the street and from the media. This has become his habit. Even now the time has come for us to hit the street. But, before taking to the street, we want to hand over a memorandum to the Prime Minister, with an ultimatum to nab and punish the guilty. We are also planning to hand in memorandums to all members of the Constituent Assembly (CA) and stage a sit-in outside the CA premises. So far, even the CA members haven´t been able to raise the issue seriously. If the issue is not addressed even after we have done all these things, we will hit the street. It will take some time.
In this murder case, the government has also undermined the courts by not handing over the accused to the police within 90 days. Hundreds of days have passed since the court ruling. This is contempt of court as wel.
As told to Tilak Pokharel (tilak@myrepublica.com) on January 15, 2009
