Where in the sane world can this possibly happen, and in which society do army men go unpunished for such flagrant indiscipline and provocative act of terrorizing police in uniform? The reason why the army men behaved in that fashion is even more bizarre. According to reports, the army personnel were threatening the police for the arrest of eight army men on April 9 in an inebriated condition. Sohrakhutte police arrested the drunken men, including Major Sanjay Jung Rayamajhi, at 2 a.m. After conducting medical checkups, which proved that they had consumed excessive amounts of alcohol, the police handed them over to military police.
After the police turned over Rayamajhi and his drunken colleagues to military police the army should have promptly taken disciplinary action against them. But nothing of the sort happened and a few days later the army men, under Rayamajhi’s leadership, went on to threaten the police officials.
The army on Monday issued a statement saying that it is "deeply concerned" over the Sohrakhutte incident and that it has formed a taskforce to probe it. What people were waiting for from the army was not a statement but action against Rayamajhi, since there were enough circumstantial evidence of gross misconduct. Rayamajhi should have at least been suspended immediately.
But then, the army is not known for taking prompt action against its personnel irrespective of the scale or gravity of their wrongdoing. On most occasions, the army´s first instinct has been to cover up such incidents and protect the personnel involved. That´s exactly what the army tired to do in two recent incidents where different probes later found that army personnel were guilty. Against the army´s claim that the three women killed in Bardiya National Park were poachers there is now growing evidence that the dead were innocent local villagers. Similarly, police investigation has revealed the involvement of four soldiers in the murder of four members of a family in Thimure in Palpa. It does no good to the army as an institution when it tries to cover up criminal activities involving army men. Crime is crime irrespective of who commits it, and it should be dealt with in accordance with the law of the land. The army trying to obstruct such action is as unfortunate as it is detrimental to the army itself.
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