But two and half years after the pledge, the victims of the bomb blast triggered at Bandarmude, Madi by the Maoists on June 6, 2005 are still awaiting the promised relief package.
Dahal had promised the package during a meeting with blast victims at Phulbari village near Bharatpur in October, 2006, but like most of his other commitments he did not keep his promise even when he led the government for more than nine months.
The kin of 39 victims including three soldiers, who were killed in the heinous attack and 73 others who were injured gathered at a memorial pillar built on the site of the incident Saturday to remember their loved ones.“I regained consciousness only on a hospital bed in Kathmandu. I had head injuries at first but later learnt that my vertebral column was also broken and I still tie belts around the chest and waist,” says Durga Maya Magar, complaining that of late she has been made to pay for her treatment.
“They don´t even allow me inside a bus,” rues another victim, Bishnu Maya BK, who is now on crutches. “I have come here paying a fare of Rs 25 in the hope of getting my story heard,” says BK, who comes from a poor economic background.
More than 100 people were traveling in the overcrowded bus when the then rebel Maoists ambushed it, using electronic devices. The ambush device was planted at Bandarmude in the Madi area of Chitwan, the home district of Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and other senior Maoist leaders Ram Bahadur Thapa and Amik Sherchan.
This mass murder was heavily criticized, with some human rights organizations terming it a “crime against humanity”. Nepal-based human rights bodies had said the mass murder justified the terrorist tag that the government slapped on the then Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).
Maoist Chairman Dahal himself frequently described the blast as the most horrifying incident that occurred during the insurgency. But the Maoists have not yet apologized for the crime, and neither have they made public what punishment they meted out to those who waited for the bus and detonated the electronic device.
The victims say the Maoists have not visited the blast site since a difference arose over the construction of the memorial pillar and what was to be written on it in remembrance of the dead.
"In memory of those who lost their lives in a heinous blast committed by the CPN (Maoist) party, which was declared a terrorist-party by the then government," reads the pillar. The Maoists had objected to this language.
The victims argue that the words written and the facts given in the pillar are well known and there is no reason for discrimination solely on that ground.
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