Ansari's wife and mother. Photo: Shyam GuptaShyam Gupta in Bara
For hours after 20-year-old Hifajat Ansari was killed in police firing in Kalaiya of Bara district early this week, his pregnant wife remained oblivious of the tragedy that had befallen her.
After putting her two-year-old son, crippled by polio virus, to sleep, Sobiya Khatun was washing dirty clothes when her neighbours started thronging there. But no one could muster courage to tell her that her husband had been killed.
Ansari's father, Najib Miyan, was working on a nearby paddy field. When he saw the crowd, he rushed home out of curiosity. Ansari's mother, Bigun Khatun, had gone out to buy some medicines. She was taken aback to see he house swarmed with neighbours.
After they returned, one of the neighbours told them that their son was shot at and rushed to the hospital. Ansari's mother and wife started weeping. His father tried to console them, but tears were rolling down his cheeks, too.
Neither Ansari's parents nor wife knew that he was active in political activities. Neigbhours say he was just a common man without having connections with any political party. He used to eke out a living by repairing cycles by the side of a busy intersection in Kalaiya, some two kilometers from his house.
On Tuesday this week, Kalaiya bazaar was tense with protesters clashing with police in different parts of the town. An indefinite Tarai shutdown imposed by Madhesi political parties had reached its 15th consecutive day, and Ansari was not getting any clients due to the strike.
At around 2 p.m, Ansari closed his cycle repairing workshop run in a thatched hut. He was heading back home but got swayed by protesters. In no time, he was on the forefront of protesters pelting stones at police police.
In the adjacent district of Parsa, five people had been killed when police opened fire to disperse protesters. When the news reached Bara, the Kalaiya protesters turned even more violent. Police opened fire in Kalaiya as well and a bullet pierced Ansari's chest. He fell to the ground at Bharat Chowk of Kalaiya.
Four days later, Ansari's body is in the mortuary of the Kalaiya hospital. His wife finds it difficult to believe that he is gone. "I don't know how to raise my children," she says. "He was the only one who would earn bread for us."
Two different alliances of Madhesi parties have spearheaded anti-constitution protests across the central Tarai for the last three weeks. They have demanded not more than two provinces in the Tarai. As per a deal reached among the four major political parties on 8 August, only two provinces will be created in the Tarai but some plains districts will be merged with three other hill provinces.
In the western plains, a separate political movement spearheaded by the ethnic Tharus demanding a Tharuhat province is in its full swing. On Friday, Constable Deb Bahadur Pandey was killed when Tharuhat protesters clashed with police in Mainapokhar bazaar of Bardiya district. Police say protesters corned and killed him, the Tharuhat leaders say he was mistakenly shot dead by police themselves. Last week, eight policemen were killed in a deadly clash in Tikapur of Kailali district.