Family members of late Pashupati Rana, who was shot dead by an underground criminal group one-and-a-half years ago, chose displacement. The family members do not like to talk at length about the tragedy.[break]
The displaced lot had arrived at their native village of Ramnagar-9, four kilometers north of this bazaar, a few days ago to perform the after-death rituals of one female family member. They will soon get back to their safe nests elsewhere.
"This is my home but I can not sleep here at all. So I left this place," said an elderly man, perhaps one of the oldest members in the Rana family that migrated from the western hills to this place nearly 100 years ago.
"This is our obligatory stay here. We are together every time and even sleep together," he added.
The bazaar and its peripheral areas have been under the shadow of terror following three murders in a row within two years, the latest being the barbaric slaughter last week of Ram Ekbal Yadav, of Nigual-3, who was a local leader of Nepal Sadbhavana Party (Anandi Devi).
"Please don´t ask my name," said one Yadav, who seemed to be in his 30s. "I do not want to invite danger."
In the neighborhood of Yadav families live Shrestha families in a cluster. The Shresthas have only been living in trauma since the killing of Bir Bahadur Shrestha two years ago.
Criminals targeting villagers one after another and operating a wide nexus of extortion makes this belt one of the most dangerous in the central Terai.
While interviewing the locals at one point, a youngster approached this scribe and asked to go with him toward three others staying some 50 meters away. One of the interviewees later told that local youngsters have been widely misused by criminal gangs.
"The society is being criminalized,” said a businessman. “It is not only a trans-border or underground maneuver, but also a mistaken approach employed even by locals for easy money. We know very well that we are under surveillance of people we know and we never want our children to mix with them," he added.
"The youngsters are becoming drug abusers, and are being habituated to unbelievable luxuries. The parents do not know how they can afford all that," he said.
According to locals, every store owner or any peasant who has land enough to feed the family has been keeping criminals on pay-roll in exchange of safety. Otherwise, they face the choice of either fleeing the place or being finished, he said.
Gaushala has Area Police Office and the base office of Armed Police Force. But they have proved ineffective in instilling a sense of security, locals say. "We do not venture out after dusk sets in. Till a few years ago, we would even sleep outside our homes," they added.
According to locals, the movement of known criminals had increased here on the eve of the murder of Yadav. "They (criminals) are those whom police arrested and released due to political pressure many times," a local said. "We do not dare to tip the cops off."
Locals do not believe that groups that claim responsibility for criminal incidents are really the ones that perpetrated the acts of crime. "Once somebody is murdered, there is a rush to claim responsibility,” a local said.
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