Mob, movement and mayhem
The people's movement in 1990 ended the Panchayat system and ushered in multiparty democracy in Nepal. But residual anger from the brutality during the Panchayat era led to protesters killing six policemen on the streets of Kathmandu on 24 April of that year.
Hari Raj Adhikari, an eyewitness who was with the police at the time, recounts the event 32 years later.
At around 10PM on 23 April 1990, news came that a crowd in Kalanki had seized a vehicle carrying weapons from Birganj. There were also reports of protesters seizing a police vehicle in Teku.
In the early days of democracy, outrage stemming from years of autocratic regime meant that the relationship between the state and citizens was still fraught. People were suspicious of the security forces, and there were also stories that the army had sided with King Birendra and the police with the Queen Aishwarya.
When the new government was formed, the police uniform was changed from the old Khaki to navy blue. But rumours circulated that those in blue uniforms were fake.
On that fateful night, protesters stopped the patrol vehicle in Teku and accused the policemen of being impostors. An argument ensued and the police called for backup of two more teams.
By the time the teams arrived, the mob had gotten out of hand. They dragged the 8-9 policemen in the vehicles out on the road and started attacking them.
I went to the site in civilian clothes after getting the news. The crowd had beaten the policemen black and blue, spitting and jabbing at their bloodied bodies. My friends were screaming out in pain, but there was nothing we could do. The crowd was too big.
A similar clash had also occurred on 8 April, but the army promptly came to our rescue then.
That night, I was positioned in Lagan. A crowd gathered on the streets and lit fireworks celebrating the success of the people’s movement and the return of democracy.
It was past midnight and a fight erupted when we tried to calm the group. We did not have any way to call for backup, so when they started assaulting us, we ran for our lives.
Read also: One moment 30 years ago today, Mukesh Pokharel
We gathered at the main intersection of Lagan where army officers found us. A commander summoned everyone stationed at various junctions.
It was a large mob and we could not return to the Ward Police Office in Kalimati.
There were about 80-90 of us, and we formed two lines: one for the police and one for the army, and made our way to the army barracks in Hanuman Dhoka. The next day, an army van dropped us at our station.
Back in Teku, I silently watched the horror unfold, and returned.
Early next morning, a sub-inspector and I returned to the scene but the protestors chased us. We returned to the police station shaken.
Later in the morning, demonstrators from Kalanki and Kirtipur gathered in Kalimati. They paraded the dead and injured policemen from the previous evening around the bazaar. The crowd was also dragging around the then IGP Hem Bahadur Singh.
When the Home Minister Yog Prasad Upadhyay tried to persuade the mob to save policemen, they got angrier. They shouted: "Do you also wish to die?"
Some 70-80 of us were guarding the police station in Kalimati at the time. The in-charge of the station, Keshav Adhikari, had fled on a motorcycle. At around 10AM, we were getting ready for our morning meal when the mob attacked and vandalised the station. We dropped everything and fled.
The mob chased us and beat us with whatever they could find. They tied a friend of ours to the statue of Mahendra on the way to Tahachal from Kalimati and cut off his ear.
After the police station was captured, the then acting DIG Achyut Krishna Kharel came to rescue of the hostages. But he returned with tears in his eyes after Yog Prasad Upadhyay ordered him not to open fire. Kharel wrote about this in his autobiography (see below).
Hiding from the crowd, I made my way to the rented apartment where I lived with my wife. A friend had followed me and both of us hid under the bed. My wife pulled the sheets down to hide us from view, opened the window and locked the door from outside.
Knowing that a policeman lived in the house, people came looking. If they had found us, we would have been dead.
We hid for more than four hours and came out only in the evening. The same night, my wife and I got on a truck and left for my hometown in Lamjung. If anyone had found out that I was a police officer.
I returned to Kathmandu after a month and was placed at the same police station, after which I got transferred to Pokhara.
Read also: Returning to the cradle of democracy, Nepali Times
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To better understand the events, the following is an excerpt from police chief Achyut Krishna Kharel's autobiography, originally published in 2018:
“Take the force to Kalimati and rescue the men held hostage there, ” I ordered the DSP of Kathmandu Valley Ravi Kant Aryal.
He took with him a truck full of the police and charged at the mob starting in Trupureswor.
People had begun to disperse when the Home Minister and the IGP made their way to the site from Kalimati. From far away, it looked like the Minister was leading the mob. He told the police not to advance. And so, Aryal retreated.
He threw down his weapon before me and said, “They are going to kill the policemen and yet the Home Minister tells us to retreat. What is the meaning of being a police officer in this country?” I asked him not to be disheartened.
When I heard the news that the mob had assaulted the Home Minister and IGP, I sent two trucks full of police to save them. With the help of a Congress politician Ang Dorje Lama, we rescued the two from near Khula Manch. Unfortunately, we were not able to free the policemen who were being held by the local security association.
Reports came in that the captured police had been beaten senseless and were being paraded around town. The protesters were trying to take them to Singha Darbar via Hanuman Dhoka and Ratna Park.
When the crowd reached Putali Sadak, traffic in-charge Ashok Singh reported the situation to me. I ordered Narayan Bastakoti and the team to go on an ‘all-out action’.
Once the police advanced, the crowd dispersed. We charged ahead with batons and took the injured policemen and people to Bir Hospital. The six policemen who had been attacked in Teku succumbed to their injuries.
The people who called themselves pro-democracy killed innocent policemen who were just doing their duty.
Hari Raj Adhikari retired after serving the police for ten years and later went abroad. He returned to Nepal after 15 years and settled in Bharatpur. He is currently in the transportation business.
Read more: Nepal's cycles of revolution, Nepali Times
As told to Sabita Shrestha
Translated from Nepali original in Himalkhabar monthly magazine.