Terrorized Tarai

A fear psychosis has come to grip the entire Tarai belt of the country. While commoners prefer to stay at home once the sun goes down, industries, local shops and even media houses are said to shut down by late evening. Reportedly, the newsroom of Janakpur Today, once the most famous newspaper, now remains almost deserted after 6 pm as the whole editorial team led by Brij Kumar Yadav leaves for home before dark. After the murder of publisher Arun Singhaniya one-and-a-half-months ago, the staff of the regional daily have been gripped by fear. The insecurity surrounding the media fraternity in Janakpur had already come to stay with the murder of Uma Singh, an active women journalist from Janakpur, some two years ago. The situation has deteriorated to a point where people especially in Mahottari are having to choose between keeping criminals on payroll or be displaced. One such case that happened in Gaushala village of Mahottari was reported by this daily Wednesday. 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).



Police establishment too is said to be extremely weak in maintaining law and order. The situation is made worse by the practice of politicians allegedly showering protection on gangsters and armed groups’ members. This means that criminalization of politics and politicization of crime is so deep-rooted in the Tarai that for the common people, there seems to be no way out. The increase in the surge of crime rate in the Tarai in recent years can be attributed to two reasons. One, many splinter factions of the then CPN (Maoist), who have no political agenda, have made extortion a means of earning their daily bread and butter. Second, with the strengthening of law and order situation in the border Indian state of Bihar, it is widely suspected that many criminals from there have now started operating in the Tarai.



It is about time the government and the political parties got the concerned authorities to get their acts together and put an end to the deteriorating law and order situation in the Tarai region. The police must be strengthened to guarantee the safety of the journos, industrialists, entrepreneurs and the public at large. Unless the government implements an effective strategy to curb crime in the Tarai, the fear psychosis will lead to mass hysteria. The government must act now.

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