Nothing can undo the loss but Sanju has done her bit to try to overcome the adversities and, now in her mid-20s, has started to fight for other unfortunate single women like her in Jumla district. [break]
Widowed in teens
Born and brought up in Indrapur-4, Bardiya, Sanju was married to Tirtha Raj Khatri of Kartikswami-5 in Jumla at a tender age. Her husband had not even passed the 10th grade and was happy working in the field and helping his wife with domestic chores while she, being an SLC-pass woman in remote Jumla, landed a lucrative short-term job with Nepal Red Cross Society.
“I had received my first paycheck of Rs 17,000,” she recalls. “I didn’t even buy a single piece of cloth and gave the whole amount to my husband,” she adds. Tirtha Raj had had a stone removed while in the second grade and would suffer from back pain whenever he worked a little work. “I asked him to go to Nepalgunj for treatment,” she reminisces.
Being a family man, Tirtha Raj first went to see his stepbrother who was a Nepal Army soldier posted at the Sunbarsha Barrack in Banke. Maoist insurgency had reached its peak and Tirtha Raj’s family, with his father a retired assistant sub inspector of Nepal Police, had also been made to cough up donations.
But the simpleton from Jumla didn’t know that a casual talk at a local teashop in Betahani VDC in Banke could cost him his life. “He revealed that he was going to see his army soldier brother to one Naresh Khatik, the Maoist in-charge of Betahani, during conversation at the tea stall,” she rues.
Khatik then offered to show him to the barrack and abducted him on August 17, 2004. She only knew of the incident when a local newspaper published the news of her husband’s murder six days later.
“The villagers say Khatik shot him four days after abduction and threw his body into a swollen Rapti river,” she reminisces with misty eyes. The family never recovered the body.
The then Royal Nepal Army killed Khatik a week after Tirtha Raj’s abduction in retribution and Sanju says Khatik’s mother confessed to human rights activists that she had repeatedly pleaded to her son to release Tirtha Raj.
“But Khatik would not listen to her and I guess the money (Rs 17,000) must have played a part in sullying his intention,” she explains.
The Maoists have since admitted that her husband was unnecessarily killed but have done nothing to help her and the state has also not done anything till date. “The district peace committee has registered my name in the list of conflict victims a few months back. I don’t know what they will do,” she says.
Helping others in need
She was yet to complete 20 years and she had lost everything. Others would have given in but she chose to struggle. She decided to pursue her study with encouragement from her supportive in-laws and is now doing her third year in Bachelor of Education in Jumla.
Her daughter is now in the third grade of Kanika Neesha English Boarding School in her village and Sanju herself has become some kind of a savior of needy women. She is president of the single women´s group, Women for Human Rights, since its Jumla branch was formed a few months ago.
Now in Kathmandu to attend a two-day International Conference on Widowhood: Widows Voices Empowered that started on Thursday, Sanju says she has already helped two single women get justice while another is waging a legal battle.
“We have helped a widow, who was thrown out of her house by in-laws, return back to her house while another single woman who had a property dispute with her husband’s elder brother has received her share. A 16-year-old girl, who had been regularly beaten by her in-laws and made to work hard without even adequate food, is currently fighting her case,” she said on the sidelines of the conference that has over 100 Nepalis from 66 districts and 25 foreigners from South Asia, USA, UK, Australia, Italy, Scotland, Germany and other western countries as participants.
She has formed groups in 18 VDCs in Jumla and they include even the women widowed by the state during the Maoist insurgency. “Our groups in five VDCs have even received Rs 100,000 each from the VDC offices for women empowerment,” she reveals.
“I pray that a woman is no more widowed at such a young age like me due to conflict in the country,” she wishes and wants to be there for any woman in need in her district.
premdhakal@myrepublica.com
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