Relatives of Nakarmi and students of ACE Management College, Cosmos College and Campion College, among others, took out a rally Thursday afternoon to protest the "indifference" of the embassy and the Nepali government toward the case.
"We submitted a memorandum to the prime minister through his Personal Secretary Bikesh Shrestha who has assured us of an audience with the PM at 3 p.m. Friday," coordinator of the struggle committee Keshav Khatri said.
Nakarmi’s motorcycle (Ba 27 Pa 1457) collided with a vehicle with plate number 61 CD 25 driven by US embassy official Jennifer L Kerr (driving license number 06-14022) at around 9.30 p.m. on March 9 at Hattisar in the capital.
It is not clear yet who hit whom.
Nakarmi has been in coma ever since.
His 55-year-old father Surendra Bahadur Nakarmi, who was on bed rest with urine infection, died 22 days after the accident due to the shock, people close to the family say. "He stopped eating after the shock and subsequently died after 22 days," Khatri said.
The family claims that the US Embassy has not contacted it to talk about compensation and no action has been initiated against the guilty.
"We demand compensation and expenses for Nakarmi’s treatment and want action against Kerr as per international law if she cannot be brought to book under Nepali law, so that no other Nepali has to suffer Nakarmi´s fate at the hands of diplomatic staff in the future," Khatri briefed about the gist of the memorandum. Nakarmi is in coma at the Blue Cross Nursing Home, Tripureshwar and Khatri puts the medical expenses over Rs 600,000 so far.
"We still believe that street protest is not the only way for justice. But if our demands are not met we will be forced to take stronger measures," Khatri warned.
The American Embassy claims that Nakarmi’s bike hit Kerr’s vehicle while trying to evade police check and refers to the police report that has found Nakarmi at fault.
However, the victim’s family begs to differ.
"We were not told that Nakarmi was at fault on the next day, that was a public holiday for Holi, when we visited the police office at Durbar Marg. The police prepared the false report under pressure from the embassy," Khatri alleges. "Moreover, though the police confiscated Kerr’s license, they did not conduct any sort of test to ascertain whether she was driving under any kind of influence. Don´t we have the right to know whether she was drunk or not," he argues.
Khatri claims the spot report was made unilaterally under the embassy´s pressure. "If they could call the embassy staff Kishore Pradhan and Govinda Shahi from Maharajgunj, why couldn´t they use Nakarmi´s functional cell phone at the spot to call his family living at Maitidevi," he points out.
"Sunny was left lying on the road for half an hour and the embassy did not initiate any process to take him to hospital. One policeman later said that they had left Nakarmi for dead and only took him to hospital after he moved his hand," he says.
Superintendent of Police, Kathmandu, Nawaraj Silwal said there is little chance of Nakarmi winning the case as it stands. "The traffic police made the case weak and Nakarmi has no chance of winning. We requested the embassy to provide compensation on humanitarian grounds but they say that they will seek legal remedy since the victim´s family went to media,” Silwal said.
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