This is becoming sickening. Innocent people killing innocent compatriots means, something is going seriously wrong in this country, with us. The other day locals in Dhunchopakha, Bhakatapur, thrashed to death two youngsters and seriously injured other two suspecting them to be kidnappers. This is third such incident in Kathmandu valley in as many weeks. In a wave of such attacks, under the same suspicion, more than 15 strangers were killed in eastern tarai in the last few months.
What is going wrong? This is the question we should ponder seriously. When a noted journalist Padam Thakurathi was shot at in 1986 it sent a shock wave across the country. It was not just because he was a high-profile journalist-- a better explanation lies in the fact that violence was so rare in the society then that shooting at any commoner would probably create a similar uproar. So the most sensational thing in that incident was the very fact that a bullet was fired, not who was shot at. Again, there were only a few incidents of a life-threatening violence not because security was good under the Panchayat system but because use of violence was not sanctified by the society.
The ten-year long People´s War removed the taboo on violence as a political means or a means for personal revenge. The political parties´ failure to discourage, if not renounce, violence further established it in the society. And now we seem to have come to a point where violence is the most preferred means to settle any dispute.
A principal in a college in Rajbiraj didn´t accept student´s demand and he was pointed a pistol at the temple; a patient went missing from a hospital bed in Pokhara and his relatives went straight to the doctors and manhandled them; and students disputed over a contract offer in the college and they ended up firing of live bullets. All these disputes/differences could have been settled through a dialogue but no one seem to have any patience for that. That´s dangerous.
There is no short cut solution to this deepening culture of violence but there certainly is a place to begin with: tackle the latest incidents, bring to book the culprits and send a strong message that violence will no longer be tolerated. The second important thing would be go after the proven cases of past violence and arrest the guilty, sending equally strong message that impunity will be brought to an end. Remember, when people lose faith in state or law enforcement agencies, they will begin to take law in their hand.
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