Unspeakable crime

Yet again an unspeakable crime has been committed in Kathmandu Valley. Police have recovered the torso of 19-year old Khyati Shrestha, a student of Jubilant College, three weeks after her abduction from Putalisadak in the heart of the capital city. Police said they have found pairs of severed hands and legs in Narayanghat, possibly belonging to Khyati, and have brought them to Kathmandu for forensic testing. As things unfold, it appears that a former teacher was involved in the girl’s kidnapping and eventual murder.



This gruesome crime has left people shocked and angry, and fueled their sense of insecurity even further. If the kidnappers can pull off their crime when the victim is a 19-year-old, they can do so even more easily if the target is young children, a much more vulnerable lot.



Kidnapping is nothing new to Kathmandu—and that’s the real worry. The frequency with which innocent people are being kidnapped in the capital, mostly for ransom, should ring the alarm bells and calls for immediate action to stop these heinous crimes. Only this week a businessman and a student were freed from the clutches of their abductors. Businessmen of Marwari origin in the capital say there is hardly any family in their community which has not paid ransom to abductors. Kidnapping has become a lucrative occupation for criminals partly because of the hesitation of the victimized families to cooperate with police for fear of reprisals and partly because of police inefficiency.



In Khyati’s case the police were in the know for 17 days and were following the activities of the abductors but could not save the precious life of the Shrestha family’s only child. The Nepal government recently enacted a law slapping up to 12-year jail terms on such abductors. The police should enforce the law and seek reforms in it if necessary to give it more teeth, for one cannot compromise with kidnappers.



But let’s never forget that crime thrives in a social-political context. Not that crimes do not happen in societies that have a peaceful political culture and better law and order. No society is entirely free from crime, for that matter. But in a society where political parties themselves engage in violence and killings and do not take any concrete step to end impunity, criminals will take their cue from politics and take to crime with more confidence and less compunction. Besides giving more autonomy to the law enforcement authorities, the political parties should also strictly control the violent activities of their own sister wings—especially the youth and student organizations. Only then will we begin to see improvements in the law and order situation.

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