<figure><img width="640" height="426" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111016118/636d14089c7e80680e0a9958jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Photo: Jan Møller Hansen</figcaption></figure>Nearly an entire generation of Nepali youth has grown up following the Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA) that was signed on 21 November 2006, and which brought the Maoist insurgency to an end.
The accord marked the entry of the Maoists into democratic politics, effectively ending the war. But thousands of families of those killed, maimed or disappeared still <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/12-years-later-justice-is-a-mirage/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wait for truth and justice</a>.
Signed 15 years ago on this day, the CPA pledged to ‘Investigate human rights violations and those involved in crimes against humanity’.
But 14 prime ministers later, the whereabouts of nearly 2,000 people who went missing during the war remains unknown. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-runs-out-of-excuses-to-address-war-crimes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Conflict-era survivors</a> of torture, abuse, rape and families of those killed continue to wait for justice all these years later.
“State officials' reluctance to investigate and prosecute such serious crimes has exacerbated the suffering of victims, undermined the rule of law in post-conflict Nepal, and increased the risk of such violations in the future," says Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
In 2015, the government formed the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/truth-about-truth-commission,3565" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Truth and Reconciliation Commission</a> and the Commission to Investigate Enforced Disappearances. Both received more than 60,000 complaints but not a single investigation has been resolved, said four rights organisations in a statement released on the anniversary of the CPA agreement.
Rather, the two commissions are being used as a pretext to prevent cases from moving through the regular courts. 
The current 5-party coalition government includes former enemies in the conflict: the Nepali Congress and the Maoists. Critics have said there is an unspoken agreement between them to delay the transitional justice process since so many of their senior leaders could be considered culpable for war crimes.
It was perhaps to deflect criticism from human rights groups and international watchdogs that Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal (who was known by his nom de guerre 'Prachanda' during the conflict) issued a statement on 21 November, saying that his party was committed to meet the obligations under the CPA on justice for wartime excesses.
'Although the conflict was brought to an end, the task of investigating events that occurred during the war and to provide victims with transitional justice remains,' Dahal said <a href="https://www.himalkhabar.com/news/126682" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">in the statement</a>, which was also published in English in The Kathmandu Post on Sunday. 'We are proud of what the revolution achieved, but we will probe and bring out wartime excesses.'
Amnesty International, the International Commission of Jurists, Human Rights Watch and TRIAL International issued a joint press release on Sunday stating that the promises made in the agreement have not yet been fulfilled 15 years later, there has been no progress in providing justice for the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/nepal-must-reboot-human-rights-rule-of-law/" target="_blank" style="letter-spacing: 0.01em;" rel="noopener noreferrer">crimes and other offenses</a> committed against international law. 
“Nepal's transitional commissions have not been able to achieve anything in the last six years. These commissions have long since lost the trust of the victims,” says Mandira Sharma, Senior International Legal Adviser to the ICJ.
The commissions also drew much criticism for a clause that recommended <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/just-not-justice/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">granting amnesty</a> to those that committed serious crimes under international law. After international pressure, the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/rights-groups-laud-nepal-supreme-court-ruling/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">issued an order</a> to annul the provision, which the government has since implemented.
The statement from the four international organisations reinforced the Supreme Court's order to amend the law, while urging for timely justice and reparations for the victims. 
<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/rocky-transition-to-justice/" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" rel="noopener noreferrer">Nepal’s delayed transitional justice</a> and multiple cases of the perpetrators being set free by the court have diminished its credibility in the world community. In October 2020, the country was <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepal-elected-to-2nd-term-at-unhrc/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">elected to the second term at UNHRC</a> (United Nations Human Rights Council) even as it had failed in fulfilling human rights pledges at home, much to the criticism of activists.
All four organisations have called on the Nepal government to set a clear timeline for a reliable <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/14-years-after-conflict-no-closure-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">transitional justice process</a> with the needs of the victims at the forefront, to begin meaningful consultations with them and to fulfill their legal obligations.
Adds Meenakshi Ganguly of Human Rights Watch: "If justice is continually denied in Nepal, perpetrators of these international crimes committed during the conflict will be prosecuted abroad under international jurisdiction."

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Justice delayed, justice denied

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/2022111011110/636ccc399c7e80680e08bc0fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="853"/><figcaption>Photo: NEPALI TIMES/ARCHIVES</figcaption></figure>Communist parties the world over are obsessed with anniversaries. October Revolution Day, Mao Zedong’s Birthday, North Korea’s Day of Victory in the Great Fatherland Liberation War, etc.In Nepal, the Maoist party used to commemorate its <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/20-years-wasted-in-war,2850" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/20-years-wasted-in-war,2850&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1613472954817000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHGEznCvktgEt5usFy1rycNiTsQxA">‘People’s War Day’ on 13 February</a> with much fanfare. This year, except for a book launch by former Maoist ideologue Baburam Bhattarai, the anniversary went largely unmentioned and unnoticed.Perhaps it was intentional, since the warring sides now represent the state, and the Maoists who were till 2006 executing UML cadre, have joined hands in the NCP. They are each other’s throats again, but that is another story.For the former guerrilla commanders, this is no time to rake things up and mark the anniversary of an armed struggle that ended up killing more than 17,000 Nepalis in ten years.It was on the night of <a href="http://www.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2015/02/16/making-war-on-the-day-of-love/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2015/02/16/making-war-on-the-day-of-love/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1613472954817000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFpDc6yTgkFhvUV75qSDT5o5vcMuQ">13 February 1996</a> that a group of Maoist guerrillas led by Nanda Kishore Pun and Barsha Man Pun crept up a mountain and attacked a police post in Holeri of Rolpa district. <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2015/10/31/ex-guerrilla-is-vice-president/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2015/10/31/ex-guerrilla-is-vice-president/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1613472954817000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH8FobNTS5watPUN4BU8Gnm_WuKPA">Nanda Kishore Pun</a> is now vice-president of the republic, and Barsha Man Pun was till December Energy Minister in the NCP government.The ‘revolution’ began <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2015/02/16/making-war-on-the-day-of-love/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2015/02/16/making-war-on-the-day-of-love/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1613472954817000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGZ5eDzMaf5LfBl1IOrQg778aVc4w">a day before Valentine’s </a>with simultaneous attacks on police stations in Gorkha, Kavre, Sindhuli. A week previously, Bhattarai had handed over a list of 40 demands with a two week ultimatum to Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba. Among them: a ban on Hindi movies, scrapping of the 1950 India-Nepal treaty, stopping Gurkha recruitment and curtailment of the power of the monarchy.Deuba ignored the demands, most of which were beyond his power to fulfill. In any case, the Maoists had no intention of waiting two weeks, and launched the attacks with World War I vintage rifles and khukri.Deuba was too distracted with infighting within his Nepali Congress party, and ignored the escalating violence in the countryside. When he did react, police retaliation was so brutal and arbitrary it ended up pushing ordinary people, who had wanted no part in the war, into the Maoist fold.The Maoist rationale for armed struggle was the belief that feudalism was so deeply entrenched in Nepal that parliamentary democracy was no solution. A Mao-style protracted armed struggle was needed to counter the structural violence of the state. This was partly true. The state apparatus had tried to ensure in successive elections in the early 1990s that Samyukta Jana Morcha, the electoral front of the Maoists, would not be able to expand its presence in the party’s stronghold in the mid-western mountains.The insurgency was an attempt to short-circuit liberal democracy and constitutional monarchy that had just been established six years previously through the first People’s Movement of 1990.In fact, the outlines of a new Nepal were just starting to appear: the open market was attracting foreign investors, jobs were being created, the press was free, and the Decentralisation Act devolved power to the grassroots for the first time. The impact of accountable local government on development and service delivery was starting to be felt when the insurgency ignited.For the Maoists, who believed political power came from bullets not ballots, these elected <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/This/noble-ends-noble-needs,620" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/This/noble-ends-noble-needs,620&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1613472954817000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEj9I7GF-kwmEz5hM-b1eSF3j1lgA">village government units became rivals</a>. Which is why, after the police, their first targets were popular local leaders. By the end of the conflict in 2006, most village council buildings had been bombed and local leaders had either been killed, or forced to flee.There is no doubt that for the Maoist leaders as well as the forces inside and outside Nepal  backing them, the sole purpose of the armed struggle was  power. However, because the objective conditions for revolution were so conducive due to social injustice, exclusion and inequity, the spark the Maoists lit in Holeri in 1996 spread like wildfire.Twenty-five years after the war started, and nearly 15 years after it ended, there is not much to show for it. Yes, Nepal is now a secular, federal republic, but that has not made much of a difference to the everyday life of citizens. In fact, the promise and sacrifices of the revolution have been squandered, and parties calling for a rollback of a Hindu state and even monarchy are gaining traction.The Maoist party is itself divided between those in the government of Prime Minister K P Oli and others loyal to Maoist supremo Prachanda. Other former UML leaders have joined hands with erstwhile Maoist comrades. Wartime excesses have not been addressed, and the state is actively ensuring that the transitional justice mechanism is toothless.The end of war has not meant peace. The legacy of war can still be seen in the residual violence and impunity, the message is that you can get away with extortion and murder, rape and torture.An armed struggle was not necessary for political change in 1996, violence was never the answer. However, the precursors of conflict are still present in Nepal, and history can repeat itself unless we build a just, egalitarian, inclusive and accountable polity.

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End of war is not peace

<figure><img width="1404" height="952" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181120/636be1a69c7e80680e083e5ejpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>The Dum Dum Central Correctional Home in Kolkata where Dipak Jays has spent the last 15 years of his 40 year incarceration without trial.</figcaption></figure>The mother of a Nepali man who has been languishing in a Kolkata jail without trial for the past 40 years has finally found out his whereabouts after efforts by journalists, lawyers and even amateur ham radio enthusiasts in India and Nepal. Dipak Jaisi had been arrested in 1981 in Darjeeling and was moved to Dumdum Central Correctional Home near Kolkata 15 years ago, where a fire destroyed all records of inmates. <a href="https://www.himalkhabar.com/news/120334" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.himalkhabar.com/news/120334&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1605795110624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH_CM6fwmKzvItT60S-NZ4ns43VSQ">Himal Khabarpatrika reported Jaisi’s story</a> on 10 November, said that there were no records of whether he had family in Nepal, and whether they knew what had become of him. Within a week of the story appearing online, Jaisi’s family in Mai Municipality of Ilam district in eastern Nepal read it and came forward.Family members contacted the magazine on Tuesday and said that Dipak’s real name was Dupta Prasad Timsina, and he had gone to Darjeeling in 1981 and had not been heard from since. It is now known that Dipak has a 81-year-old mother Dhanmaya, two younger brothers and two sisters. His father Champakhar Timsina is dead. His nephew Dilnath Phuyal is principal of Mahendra Ratna Campus in Ilam. Dilnath was doing his PhD in Kolkata in 2008 when he heard that his uncle was in a jail there, but although he looked for him there were no leads. Last year, a Darjeeling based lawyer Gunjan Sherpa had found out about Dipak’s whereabouts and told the family about him.“We are happy that he has been found, and now we will try to get him released and bring my uncle home,” said Dilnath Phuyal. <figure><img width="898" height="1052" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109181120/636be1a99c7e80680e083e5fjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption>Dipak Jaisi’s 81-year-old mother Dhanmaya Timsina was finally traced to a town in Ilam this week.</figcaption></figure>Dipak Jaisi, who is now about 62, left his home in Ilam to find work in Darjeeling, but was arrested for an unknown crime. No one bothered to take the court process forward, he was left in jail in Darjeeling and later for some reason was transferred to Kolkata. Meanwhile, Dipak’s family had moved to another town in Ilam, and his efforts to reach them failed.The story only came out when Dipak’s fellow inmate Radheshyam Das was released from the same detention facility in Dum Dum, and he told lawyers in Kolkata about a Nepali man in jail without trial. Das had first informed the Nepal Consulate in Kolkata about Dipak, but says the mission did not show any interest.<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18621" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Guilty until proven innocent</a>, Kunda Dixit<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/nepalis-from-chitwan-to-chidoya,4110" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">From Chitwan to Chiyoda</a>, Kunda DixitThen he approached ham radio operators at the West Bengal Radio Club which uses shortwave radio communications during disasters for information and relief. The Club’s Ambarish Das Biswas contacted ham radio contacts in Nepal, and then wrote to Nepal’s former Okhaldhunga High Court judge Bidur Bikram Thapa on 31 October to see if he could help trace Dipak’s family.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjeCc3WuYMY&amp;feature=emb_logoThapa then initiated a process through his colleagues in the Indian judicial system to file a writ of habeas corpus in West Bengal to get Dipak home. Last week, Biswas met Dipak in jail, but kept getting the name of the town in Ilam where his parents earlier lived, and that drew a blank when local authorities looked for them. “The Nepali Consulate in Kolkata knew about a citizen in jail, but did nothing,” Thapa said. “Why do we have a consulate at all? After all, we were not asking them to release Dipak, just to help find his family.”'<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2017/07/16/insallah/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">'Insallah''</a>, From the Nepali Press<a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/kundadixit/2011/07/21/justice-for-govinda/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Justice for Govinda</a>, Kunda DixitKolkata lawyer Hirak Singh finally met Dipak twice last week, it was revealed that he might have been arrested on a murder charge. However, there are no documents to prove this since all evidence was destroyed in the fire. Singh is now trying to get jail records from Darjeeling.Ilam-based writer Kedar Sharma played a major role in finally tracing Dipak’s family in Mai Municipality after tracking them from their earlier domicile. In Kolkata, Consul General Ishwar Raj Poudel said: “The mission is moving to meet Dipak in jail and get him released and send him home.”Hirak Singh says years of incarceration have affected Dipak mentally, and he speculates that the reason he was not brought to trial could be because he was deemed to be of unsound mind. Singh is waiting for the papers to arrive from Darjeeling and move the high court for his release and eventual return to Nepal.A long version of this story in Nepali is available at <a href="http://himalkhabar.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://himalkhabar.com&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1605795110624000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEYsCN2oQyVO6RrFKr3xArp6g3Ceg">himalkhabar.com</a>

Nepali jailed 40 years without trial in Kolkata

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101120/636b713c9c7e80680e0600bfjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1340"/><figcaption>Photo : MANISH PAUDEL</figcaption></figure>On 10 January, 24-year-old Dilip Mahato was killed for opposing the ‘Crusher’ industry in Dhanusha that was illegally mining sand from a river. This week, another Dhanusha native, former president Ram Baran Yadav, spoke to Nepali Times about the Chure conservation program he initiated.Nepali Times: Dilip Mahato was murdered in your home district, and your former constituency. What does his killing tell us?This is a grave crime. Dilip had been mobilising the villagers and talking about Chure conservation. The people were responding to it positively. Those who were earning millions from illegal mining of the river beds were alarmed. So they murdered him.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/crushers-of-justice/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Crushers of Justice</a>, EditorialWhy does the trade in boulders and sand have to lead to murder?The price of aggregate and sand for construction is sky-high right now. The materials are even exported to India. Money is at the crux of the matter. Everyone wants to become rich quickly by selling natural resources. Businessmen, mafia dons, police, local administration, and elected representatives are all complicit. One river is contracted out for Rs50-70 million. Malpractice increased after the practice of allocating money for Chure development shifted to the local administration.The crusher industry is also influential in politics: many have parliamentarians on their pay roll, and some owners are even MPs themselves. They do not care what the exploitation of rivers will do to the environment, or what kind of earth we are leaving behind for future generations. Dilip was fighting to protect our future, and he paid for it with his life.What environmental impact does this river extraction have on the Tarai? More than half of the Chure’s forests have been destroyed in my lifetime. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/flood-of-recrimination/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rivers and wetlands are drying</a> in the Tarai, and the groundwater table has receded. Water scarcity is increasing in the eastern and central Tarai. In summer, people come to the highways carrying drums on bullock carts to fetch water. Fewer migratory birds winter here now. Human-wildlife conflict is increasing. The Tarai used to be our breadbasket, and we used to export grain till 40 years ago. That is no longer the case.Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/crushing-tale-of-Chure" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Crushing tale of the Chure</a>, Sameen Raut and Dinesh PanthiWhile you were President, you established the President Chure Conservation Program, and there is also a Chure Conservation Master Plan. But the present government has not heeded the reports.The 20-year Chure Conservation Master Plan outlines activities to conserve the Chure. The government has included it in its National Pride Projects, but Parliament has not made any laws pertaining to it. That shows that the government is not serious about it.All the construction projects in the Chure negatively impact its natural resources, for example the East-West Highway that was built right across the jungles. An east-west railway is being constructed at a distance of 20-30 km from the highway. The proposed mid-hill highway runs parallel to it, and the postal highway is under construction too. Another proposed highway, the Madan Bhandari Road, is being built from Jhapa to Dadeldhura. The impact of these 4-lane highways on the environment was not considered. That shows the government is not serious about the environment.What do you say about the proposed Nijgad airport? The government just wants to destroy our last remaining jungles. It wants to chop down the forest to build a new capital in Kailali. <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/does-nepal-need-a-4th-international-airport/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Do we need a fourth international airport</a> when international airports are already under construction in <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/from-the-nepali-press/sick-airport/">Bhairawa</a> and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/pokhara-nepals-new-aviation-gateway/">Pokhara</a>? This is just immature. If we don’t listen to conservationists, the Tarai will become a desert in a few decades.Laws should be made to implement the Chure Master Plan, and an environment-friendly policy drawn up. But this subject is never raised in the federal Parliament. All three levels of the government should be active, and the government should understand that once you tamper with nature, the effects are irreversible.Read also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=19811" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Help save the Chure Hills</a>, Tirtha B Shrestha

“Business, bureaucracy and politicians all plundering the Chure”

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101120/636b71259c7e80680e0600b7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1100" height="1031"/><figcaption>Illustration : DIWAKAR CHHETRI</figcaption></figure>The Nepal Communist Party (NCP) government completes two years in power next month. Despite its <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/two-thirds-empty/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">strong majority</a>, the party’s performance has been underwhelming.It may look like the NCP is just lurching from one embarrassing cockup to another. But there are signs the party may have A Plan. That all along, it has been aiming not for ‘stability and prosperity’, but for the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/spooking-nepalis-by-snooping-on-them/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">extension of control</a>, the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/rule-by-law/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stiffling of dissent</a>, the intimidation of critics, the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/gagging-the-press-in-installments/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">muzzling of the media</a> and the constriction of civil society. There is even a systematic strategy in place to roll back the development gains of the past decades.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/14-years-after-conflict-no-closure-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">14 years after conflict, no closure in Nepal</a><a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/crushers-of-justice/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Crushers of justice</a>, EditorialGiven that power is centralised in Baluwatar, the plan is obviously being hatched at the Prime Minister’s Office. There may be a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/which-way-nepali-politics-in-2020/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">power struggle at the top</a> between Prime Minister Oli and his comrade Pushpa Kamal Dahal, but on matters of control and domination the party has <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/one-body-two-heads/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">one body with two heads</a>.The Cabinet has zero accountability and no performance evaluation. Instead, ministers regularly threaten critics with crude scare tactics. They take their cues from Prime Minister Oli, who last week accused editors in the Nepali media of being “without hearts”. It is true that the criticism of Oli across a broad-spectrum of the national media over <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-business-of-politics-undermines-nepals-democracy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">his dealings with the Yeti Group</a> has been relentless, but we have received no satisfactory explanation of why the consortium gets preferential treatment in leases of former royal property by the Nepal Trust.The government’s actions over the past two years may seem ad hoc and haphazard, but taken together there appears to be a method to the madness. Let’s take the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/no-speaker-no-parliament-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sidelining the NCP’s own Shivamaya Tumbahangphe</a> and the bullheaded approach to replace a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-rise-and-fall-of-comrade-mahara/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rape-accused Speaker</a> with a murder-accused Speaker. If we had to cite just one example of why there is <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/getting-away-with-murder/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">impunity and blatant flouting of the rule of law</a> in this country, the appointment of <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2011/05/31/hearing-set-for-case-against-minister-agni-sapkota/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Agni Sapkota</a> to the post of Parliament Speaker is it.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/no-speaker-no-parliament-in-nepal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">No Speaker, no Parliament in Nepal</a>, Sewa BhattaraiEver since the end of the conflict 14 years ago, the Maoists, the UML, NC and the security forces have been <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/yesterdays-enemies-todays-comrades/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">partners in crime</a> in sweeping their combined <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/state-of-impunity,2976" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wartime atrocities</a> under the carpet. Families of the victims and survivors of the war demand justice and truth, but every government since 2006 has tried to rig the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/12-years-later-justice-is-a-mirage/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">transitional justice</a> mechanism, and not a single perpetrator has been brought to trial. In fact, perpetrators get to lead Parliament.Agni Sapkota is accused of murdering <a href="https://www.himalkhabar.com/news/111027" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Arjun Lama, an activist of the UML</a>, in Kavre in 2005. The irony of it all is that the UML and the former Maoists are now unified in the Nepal Communist Party. After years of struggling for justice for her husband, Purnimaya Tamang finally told this paper this week: “I have lost all hope for justice now.”Pushpa Kamal Dahal may have been technically right in stating last week in Chitwan that he was responsible for the deaths of “only” 5,000 of the 17,000 people killed during <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/nepals-transition-to-peace-needs-justice/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the conflict</a>. But who is keeping count? If this vulgar non-repentance rattled many Nepalis, imagine what it did to the families of the disappeared and the survivors of that terror-filled decade.One of the provisions of the Comprehensive Peace Accord signed in 2006 was the establishment of a <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/One-To-Many/victims-waiting-for-justice,698" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and a Commission for Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP)</a>. But all governments since have conspired to make these commissions ineffectual by appointing party loyalists to their senior positions so that no one ever has to answer for war crimes. This week, the NCP and NC appointed new handpicked commissioners to the TRC and CIEDP.Aside from transitional justice, the NCP has been trying to dismantle just about every sector in which Nepal has done well. There are <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/from-the-nepali-press/taking-away-forests-from-communities/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">attempts to dilute the laws</a> governing <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/who-now-owns-nepals-forests/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">community forestry</a>. Pushpa Kamal Dahal hinted in Madi last week that he intended to change the by-laws governing Chitwan National Park. Under pressure from the fossil fuel lobby, the Finance Ministry is said to be thinking of scrapping <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-electric-transport-future-is-here/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the tax rebate on electric vehicles</a>. And this week, the Home Ministry was reported to be drafting a new Social Organisations Act which will allow it to close down non-government organisations it does not like.Taken together, it is not hard to see what the NCP has been working hard to do in the past years. In an Orwellian sense, when the party said ‘stability’, it always meant ‘control’.<h2>10 years ago this week</h2>...The <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=16728" target="_blank" rel="noopener">analysis by Ashutosh Tiwari</a> in <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/issue/486" target="_blank" rel="noopener">issue #486 of 22-28 January 2010</a> shows us how the power centre may have shifted in the last ten years, but the lust for power among our political leaders remains the same. As two Communist alpha males continue to battle it out in the ruling NCP, the latest casualty is the post of Speaker, with the sidelining of Shivamaya Tumbahangphe in favour of a murder-accused candidate: Even accounting for politicians’ lust for power, what’s wrong with our particular democratic structure that keeps on returning the same old politicians to power no matter how many Roman numeral andolans we have?On the outside, our system has the requisite avatar of a democracy (multiple parties, elections, political horse-trading, etc). Dig deeper, and you will find that it’s not the voters who call the shots but the party leaders, who have designed their parties’ internal structures in such a way as to keep them in power for as long as they live. Voters can express resentment, but come election time, they have to choose among the same menu of candidates.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109101120/636b71289c7e80680e0600b8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="513" height="800">...

THE TWO - YEAR ITCH

<img width="893" height="365" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108141156/636a60c99c7e80680e056e98jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>Rautahat MP Mohammad Aftab Alam, currently in police custody charged with murder, has refused to take a polygraph test, angering the police and making a mockery of the law. In fact, everything about this case has been mocking the rule of law for the past 12 years.Before Nepalis could enjoy Dasain and witness C<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/what-is-xi-jinpings-big-surprise/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hinese President Xi Jinping’s visit</a> this month, they were shocked by the revelation of the Rajpur Farhadwa massacre, which had been covered up since 2008, and its perpetrators had gone scot free. The terrifying stories that have surfaced have shocked the nation, offering proof of the criminalisation of politics and politicisation of crime in Nepal.  Nepali Congress politician Aftab Alam is accused of burning dozens of people alive in a brick kiln. A day before the first Constituent Assembly election in 2006, several people were making improvised explosives bombs at a farm house in Rautahat, Farhadwa - 4. The house belonged to Sheikh Idris, a deceased NC politician and relative of Alam.An influential leader in Rautahat, Aftab Alam wanted to win the CA election at any cost, and decided to import Indian bomb-makers to place explosives at various election booths to scare voters and capture the booths. He had collected raw material for bomb-making, arms and ammunition from across the border.  While the explosives were being assembled, they accidentally went off at the farm house, killing three people and injuring many. Those injured were rendered unconscious with injections, and thrown into the furnace of a nearby brick kiln along with the bodies of the dead. The number of those whose bodies were disposed of that day is not known, but is said to be more than 20, including the professional bomb makers from India.Alam's apt nickname in the district is 'Tiger', and he did not want the injured to reach a hospital, and the truth to come out. The police would have taken their statements and conducted autopsies on those killed. He feared a backlash against him a day before the election, which would cost him the coveted CA seat. Instead, he resorted to an inhumane way of ‘managing’ the causalities, depriving the living of treatment and the dead of proper funeral rites.What was even more scocking was the coverup that followed in which the Nepali Congress, local police and bureaucrats appeared to be involved. The local administration seems to have assisted Alam in removing evidence of the massacre, and threatening witnesses and relatives.According to a field report by the human rights group INSEC (Informal Sector Service Centre) immediately after the crime, residents said it was the police themselves who escorted the tractor with victims to a brick kiln owned by a family member of Alam. Some of the victims were still conscious and weeping, and behind them in a car was Alam himself. Relatives and residents were terrified by what they saw. The house damaged in the blast was soon repaired, the brick kiln demolished, and all evidence destroyed.Police inspector at the time Indra Subedi was the first police officer on the scene, but was mysteriously transferred away the same night, suggesting political collusion in the coverup. Now a DSP at police headquarters in Kathmandu, he says there was no time to even start an investigation.Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/editorial/state-of-impunity,2976" target="_blank" rel="noopener">State of Impunity</a>, Editorial <figure><img width="500" height="355" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108141156/636a60cb9c7e80680e056e99jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>The families of deceased Trilok Pratap Singh and Vasi Akhtar Miya organised a press conference immediately after the incident. Miya’s mother Ruksana Miya filed a complaint at the police station, but she was also murdered -- found dead a few days later with a bullet wound in her temple. There has been no investigation of any of the other deaths.Read also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18693#.XbFoV5IzbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The lords of Impunity,</a> Kanak Mani Dixit Victims were too scared and traumatised for many years, and shuttled from one government office to another. Often, officials gave them answers like "there was lack of proper investigation", "there is insufficient evidence", and "it is not necessary to file a case". The district police office, government attorney’s office, the courts, and the attorney general’s office all seem part of the nexus to protect Alam.The Farhadwa massacre is a crime against humanity, committed by the powerful to protect their power. It was covered up for more than a decade with active collusion of politicians, police and successive governments. Alam himself was elected to the constitution-drafting assembly, benefitting from respect and government protection, while the families of those massacred lived in sorrow and were threatened by the state into submission and silence. The Nepali Congress was unwilling to accept any action against Alam when the Maoist party had the majority in the CA with the Congress in the role of opposition. As the political power play continued during the post-war transition, Alam avoided investigataion and evaded justice. A Supreme Court verdict four months ago forced the state to arrest him. On 21 June, a Supreme Court bench of judges Anilkumar Sinha and Kumar Regmi ordered the Attorney General, Police Headquarters and the District Police of Rautahat to implement earlier court verdicts and present a detailed, updated report of the case to the court within 30 days.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/justice-for-sale/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Justice for Sale</a>, Tufan Neupane  <figure><img width="640" height="416" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108141156/636a60cd9c7e80680e056e9ajpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>While this is a shocking tale of impunity and lack of the rule of law, it now sends the message that the judiciary's role is being respected. The Farhadwa massacre is a litmus test for independent legal prosecution.Combined with the arrest of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-rise-and-fall-of-comrade-mahara/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Speaker Krishna Bahadur Mahara</a> on a charge of attempted rape, the prosecution of MPs who have resorted to violence and vandlaism in the past month show that no one can get away with crimes just because they wield power and political clout. This has restored a level of confidence in the rule of law.A lot now will depend on whether the Mahara and Alam investigations are independent and the verdicts are implemented. Alam’s emissaries are already trying to woo the relatives of the victims with money, imploring them to take back their accusations. The victims are terrified that if Alam is released, their lives will be in danger.Mahara himself is said to be reluctant to give up his Speaker's chair, and is resisting persecution, alleging a political conspiracy against him by rivals. Everyone who had a part in committing or covering up the Fardawah massacre must be brought under the purview of the law and receive maximum punishment. Justice in this case is necessary not just for the victims, but also to send a message that the rule of law is not dead in Nepal.Violence on this scale cannot be justified, it is not related to any political philosophy or the religion of the perpetrators.The Farhadwa massacre will be a milestone in turning back the tide of impunity in Nepal. The ruling NCP touts stability and prosperity as its slogans. There can be no stability without good governance, and there can be no prosperity without ordinary citizens feeling that they have the full protection of the law. No matter how powerful the perpetrators.  Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-rise-and-fall-of-comrade-mahara/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The rise and fall of Comrade Mahara</a>, Sewa Bhattarai and Sanghamitra Subba

Getting away with murder

<figure><img width="800" height="1443" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108131148/636a50429c7e80680e04fd4djpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Illustration: SUBHAS RAI</figcaption></figure>The Greek word ‘hagios’ means ‘holy’. A hagiography is therefore an admiring book about people who are praised for being much better than they are in real life. Abiram Baburam (Non-stop Baburam) by journalist Anil Thapa fits the definition of a hagiography perfectly. It follows the tradition of heroic Panchayat-era portrayals of the Sri 5, praising them to high heaven.Thapa begins with this <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=2690#.XTlxLfIzbIU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">brilliant PhD graduate</a> who chose the ‘hard’ life of politics while he led a Nepali students’ union in India. Baburam Bhattarai says he was inspired to enter politics after he saw Nepalis washing dishes in India, and wanted to start an armed class struggle back home for their salvation. When he returned to Nepal he adopted a mixture of Marxism and BP Koirala socialism as a means towards that end, joining various communist parties, even contesting elections, and ending up with the Maoists. Read Also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/?p=30527&amp;preview=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Need to remember</a>, Sewa BhattaraiAs chief ideologue he was the architect of the revolution with Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Mohan Baidya that was to rage for 10 years. After the ceasefire, and after serving as an elected prime minister (2011-2013) <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2015/09/26/bhattarai-quits-maoist-party/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bhattarai set up his own Naya Shakti party</a>, which won only one seat in Parliament (his own). This year he joined former comrade Upendra Yadav to form the Nepal Socialist Party. Most of Thapa’s book dwells on the ups and downs of the Maoist party, recounting how it persecuted Bhattarai, accusing him of being an Indian agent and putting him and his wife Hisila Yami under house arrest in Rolpa for several months.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/from-the-nepali-press/revolutionary-violence-or-terror/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Revolutionary violence, or terror?</a>    The last chapter of Thapa’s book lays out Bhattarai’s blueprint for a prosperous Nepal in which he thinks a new era has dawned after the 2015 Constitution.Now 65, Bhattarai dreams of abolishing poverty and unemployment within a decade. He still does not think he has done anything wrong, and has nothing to repent. But Bhattarai does concede that he is ‘not a god’ and may have some weaknesses. It does not look like Thapa talked to any victims of Maoist violence or their families. It is also clear that neither he nor his relatives suffered from violence during the conflict. His conclusion is that Bhattarai cannot be called a ‘terrorist’. Read also: <a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/blogs/thebrief/2011/09/24/marxism-cannot-die-pm-bhattarai/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Marxism cannot die: PM Bhattarai</a>, Prerana MarasiniTo hear about the horror of war, we need to turn to another book: Nyayako Abasaan (The End of Justice) written and edited by Kantipur journalist Ghanashyam Khadka in collaboration with Gangamaya Adhikari, who with her husband Nanda Prasad, embarked upon multiple fast-unto-death campaigns to pressure the government to punish the Maoists who tortured and murdered their younger son, Krishna, in 2004. <figure><img width="640" height="899" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108131148/636a50449c7e80680e04fd4ejpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img width="640" height="851" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108131148/636a50479c7e80680e04fd4fjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>After the ceasefire, the Adhikaris came to Kathmandu to meet politicians, only to be told to wait till after the elections in April 2008. When Pushpa Kamal Dahal was elected prime minister, he was naturally not going to listen to the Adhikari couple, nor other victims of the conflict. The next PM, Madhav Kumar Nepal, was no better.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/when-our-son-was-killed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">When our son was killed</a>, Gangamaya AdhikariMeanwhile, Maoist cadres kept threatening the Adhikari couple to give up their campaign for justice. Bhattarai and his wife Hisila Yami asked the couple’s landlords to expel them, Khadka writes, and after some harrowing events the Adhikaris end up at the old-age home run by social worker Dilshova Shrestha. The author recounts how Yami did not leave the Adhikaris alone even there.  Bhattarai could not have not known of the cruelty, and when he became prime minister in 2013 he had police arrest the couple from the gates of Baluwatar. On hunger strike, they were taken to Bir Hospital, where they <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/gangamaya-breaks-fast/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">broke their fast upon government assurances</a> — promises that were repeatedly broken. Bhattarai added salt to their wounds by sarcastically claiming that he himself had killed their son, and the government should arrest him if it could. <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/The-deadline/sad-saga-of-adhikari-family,367" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nanda Prasad died in 2014</a>, and his body is still in the Bir Hospital mortuary.Read also: <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/regular-columns/The-deadline/sad-saga-of-adhikari-family,367" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The sad saga of the Adhikari family</a>, Damakanta JayshiThe Maoist war took 17,000 lives in battles, executions and retaliatory state violence, pushing Nepal’s progress back by at least a decade. The movement spawned the Biplav faction, which is now hell bent on taking the country back to war. There has been no closure for relatives of the disappeared and victims. War crimes went unpunished, and the culture of violence and impunity continues to plague Nepali society to this day.Thapa’s book does not address that side of the story, and is likelyto have little historical value. Khadka’s book is searing in the description of pain and suffering of the innocent, and an indictment of those culpable.  Read also:<a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/gangamaya-hunger-justice,4180" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hunger for Justice</a>, Mackenzie Stallo<a href="http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/No-justice-yet-for-the-victims-of-peoples-war,2984" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“How many times do we need to share our story?”,</a> Seulki LeeRamesh Khatry teaches theology in colleges in Nepal.

Dreams and nightmares of the Nepal conflict

<figure><img width="1280" height="960" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108101136/636a237c9c7e80680e0417eejpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>Dharna at Mahendranagar in front of CDO office, Nirmala Panta's step-mother, Laxmi, at center.</figcaption></figure>Six months after the unsolved rape and murder of her daughter, the stress is beginning to show on Durga Devi Panta. Her face is taut, her wrinkles deeper, but there is the fire of determination in her eyes.As protests over the crime escalated last year, Durga Devi’s estranged husband Yagya Raj, his second wife and their son have also joined the campaign for justice, raising some eyebrows. Yagya Raj has shown signs of  psychological instability, and Durga Devi said he nearly strangled her recently.Laxmi and Yagya Raj, ostensibly under pressure from the opposition Nepali Congress, do not want Durga Devi to accept the compensation of Rs1 million from the Central Government and Rs500,000 from Province 7. Durga Devi herself does not want to be tangled in the politics, and says the compensation money would at least help her take care of her two daughters.Laxmi and Yagya Raj say they do not want Durga Devi to take the compensation for Nirmala’s death since they do not want it to affect the fast-unto-death by Govinda KC, since one of his demands is justice for Nirmala. Women’s groups and homemakers from all class and backgrounds campaigning for the case in Dhangadi, Kailali and Mahendranagar last week shared their frustration with the police's inability to solve the crime. The protests has also become politically polarised, with the opposition NC and other parties using it to embarrass the NCP government.Read also: <a style="background-color: #ffffff; letter-spacing: 0.15px;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/daughters-rape-drives-father-to-insanity/">Daughter’s rape drives father to insanity</a>, Sewa Bhattarai <figure><img width="1280" height="957" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108101136/636a23809c7e80680e0417efjpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure> Nirmala was a studious 14-year-old and the second of Durga Devi’s three teenage daughters. After her husband left her for another woman 12 years ago, the four lived in a simple house amidst fields on the outskirts of Mahendranagar in Kanchanpur.The crime has become a national issue because of Police bungling the investigation, and not being able to find the guilty. It has become the focus of country-wide protests by human rights activists, was featured in the international media and has now even got a Wikipedia entry.   “My daughter is gone, but I want justice for her, and also my remaining two daughters to have a safe and good life,” says Durga Devi with a faraway look.Nirmala Panta had joined a study group in the house of her class mate Roshani Bam after school on 26 July last year. When Nirmala did not return home, Durga Devi had become frantic, and went to Roshani’s house to look for her daughter. Her body was found the next day 500m from Roshani Bam’s house in a sugarcane field owned by police inspector Jagdish Bhatta, who has now been suspended for tampering with evidence.Read also<a style="background-color: #ffffff; letter-spacing: 0.15px;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/justice-delayed-and-denied/">: Justice delayed and denied</a>, Sewa Bhattarai Province 7 Chief Minister Trilochan Bhatta denied that Police had destroyed evidence. He told Nepali Times: “All the evidence, including the vaginal swab of the victim, are safe with us. It will take time but we will crack this case soon in coordination with the Centre.”Meanwhile, the Women Human Right Defenders of Kanchanpur and Kailali districts with other activists and independent women’s groups are continuing with their relay hunger strike at the Chief District Office in Kanchanpur.  Sitting under the tent last week was Nirmala’s step-mother Laxmi Panta with activists from Kathmandu, including Sabitri Subedi, who staged the ‘petticoat campaign’ in Kathmandu. There is much mutual suspicion even among the activists groups and muttering about each others’ motivations. “Nirmala’s case is now so muddled that we do not know what will happen to the investigation,” says Nirmala Bagchan of the Women Human Right Defenders. Sabitri Ghimire of the Dalit Women’s Right Forum in Kailali accuses the Police of deliberately destroying all evidence to protect powerful interests.The rights groups appeared to be fatigued by infighting and frustrated by the lack of progress in the investigation. Conspiracy theories swirled about a cover-up by senior officials of the provincial government and Police officers allegedly involved in the crime. Why else would the Police destroy evidence, delay the investigation, frame an innocent man, detain the Bam sisters then take them to Kathmandu, and now ask the father and mother to provide DNA samples?Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/four-fold-increase-in-reported-rape-in-10-years/">Four-fold increase in reported rape in 10 years</a>, Sewa BhattaraiSuperintendent of Police Kuber Khadayat claimed there had been eight cases of rape and five of attempted rape since the Nirmala case, and all have been solved. He said Nirmala’s case happened before he assumed office, and exuded confidence that it would be solved “soon”.The infighting among activists and the politicisation of the human rights groups helps the government, which can now blame “politics” for its failure to find the culprit. However, the real victims here are Nirmala’s mother and sisters who need the truth and justice.Namrata Sharma is the Chair of the Centre for Investigative Journalism Nepal.

Crime and politics

<figure><img width="1333" height="1000" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221107171136/636934969c7e80680e03e004jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption>When Durga Devi Panta poured her husband some water, he thanked her like she was a stranger, shook hands with her and asked the reporter to take a photo. Photo: Sewa Bhattarai</figcaption></figure>Nepal was shocked by the rape and murder of Nirmala Panta in Kanchanpur on 26 July, but with the crime unsolved and the perpetrators still at large the news has faded from the headlines. However, Nirmala's parents have been taking part in a sit-in outside the Kanchanpur District Headquarters here in Mahendranagar. Two weeks into the protest, Nirmala's father Yagya Raj Panta started showing signs that the strain was taking its toll on his mental health.On Saturday morning, Yagya Raj was showing increasingly erratic behaviour and the family decided to take him to Kathmandu for treatment, with the help of the government. His wife Durga Devi Panta and other relatives managed to take him to Dhangadi airport, but he was too aggressive and could not be pacified to board the plane. Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/republic-of-rape/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Republic of rape</a>, Editorial<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/four-fold-increase-in-reported-rape-in-10-years/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Four-fold increase in reported rape in 10 years</a>, Sewa Bhattarai“His behaviour became quite aggressive, he started abusing people and vandalising the place, the airline refused to let him board,” said Sharada Chand, who was among the human rights activists with him. Chand was herself hurt when Yagya Raj started acting violent at the airport. His wife Durga Devi and some relatives then set off for Kathmandu by road with him. On the morning of 24 November, Yagya Raj Panta was jumping at noises, shooing away visitors, and he looked very agitated. He was aggressive towards strangers, pointing at bags and asking if there were bombs in them, claiming there was a conspiracy to murder him. Activists tried to pacify him, and when Durga Devi Panta poured her husband some water from a thermos flask he thanked her like she was a stranger, shook hands with her and asked people around him to take a photo. Exactly 117 days after his daughter was raped and murdered, it is clear that Yagya Raj Panta had lost his mind. He not only tried to take off his clothes, but also beat and scratched people who came near him and some of them needed to have their hands bandaged. The videos people have taken of him have gone viral on social media. Nirmala Panta went missing on July 26, and her body was found thrown in a sugarcane field near her home. The inability of the Police and the Home Ministry to resolve the issue, their attempt to destroy evidence, frame an innocent person with the crime and what looked to many like a case of the Police trying to protect the criminals, has outraged her family and human rights activists. They said the mental strain was too much to bear for Yagya Raj Panta, and he snapped. The deceased Nirmala's family members are increasingly concerned that they are losing not just one but two persons to this tragedy. Yagya Raj’s sister Bhagirathi Bhatta says she has lost hope for her brother: “My niece is already dead and gone, but my brother is alive. I doubt if we will still have him, if this stress continues." She has also been spending the cold nights at the sit-in in an open tent across the road from the District Headquarter building. There are some pillows, mattresses, blankets, and an electric line from which to charge mobiles and heat up water in kettles, and not much else. Photos of the deceased Nirmala line the ceiling, walls and surroundings.“Ever since this protest started, he has not been himself. He sees photos of his daughter everywhere, a lot of people come and say many things. So much is happening that it was just too much to bear for him,” says Bhagirathi Bhatta, adding that her brother no longer recognises her, and calls a local policewoman 'Nirmala'. Durga Devi Panta looks harried not just from the struggle for justice for her daughter's unsolved rape and murder, but now by her husband's deteriorating mental health. “I don’t think we will ever get justice,” Durga Devi tells us, as she heats more water for protesters. “If the government wanted to give us justice, it would not have destroyed the evidence. I had lost hope right then. But now, this long protest for justice is taking our remaining health and sanity as well.”

Daughter's rape drives father to insanity

Nepal’s only international aviation gateway, at Kathmandu airport, will cut night-time operation hours to allow construction of taxiways, and airlines have been told to curtail flights. This is expected to lead to more than normal chaos during the height of peak autumn and spring tourist seasons at an airport that is congested even at the best of times. The airport will close from 10PM to 8AM from 8 November-31 March 2025. The taxiways will now connect to the thresholds at both ends of the runway, making the airport more efficient in handling higher frequencies of landings and takeoffs. The parallel taxiway extension will allow international flights to land every 4 minutes instead of the current every 7 minutes. At present planes have to wait to land until a plane taking off backtracks along the runway.&nbsp; Kathmandu is Nepal’s only airport with international operations, and it has only one runway that is only one way in from the south over the mountains. With the taxiway improvement, the airport will be able to handle 42 aircraft landings and takeoffs per hour — double the current capacity.&nbsp; The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) has been trying to entice international airlines to also start flying to and from the other two international airports at Pokhara and Bhairawa (Lumbini) by slashing landing and handling charges. But so far only Nepal Airlines operates a weekly flight to Bhairawa from Kuala Lumpur.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241018161016_046569e53d1d66cd445cc66c697c0ef724810aec9f54bdf827481e3cd6b80c32.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20241018161016_046569e53d1d66cd445cc66c697c0ef724810aec9f54bdf827481e3cd6b80c32" data-rendition-name="original" width="2356" height="1134" loading="lazy" alt="Kathmandu airport expansion"> <figcaption>Kathmandu Airport Expansion plan with extension of taxiways to the thresholds of runways 02 and 20 that will limit airport operations from 8 November 2024 - 31 March 2025. Areas in blue are existing structures, including the international terminal which in future will be the domestic airport, and the new international terminal near the north end of the runway,</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241018121028_6e17cc2ee87c1b02d78cb54905825b7aa15299b7a00f5eddb01a59579ab85c1a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241018121028_6e17cc2ee87c1b02d78cb54905825b7aa15299b7a00f5eddb01a59579ab85c1a" data-rendition-name="original" width="1353" height="1328" loading="lazy" alt="Kathmandu airport NT"> </figure>  CAAN has reportedly told international airlines to cut their flight frequency to Kathmandu citing the shorter operation hours and has told budget airlines to shift some of their flights to Pokhara or Bhairawa, or face cuts. Many airlines currently operate regular flights to and from Kathmandu between 10PM and 8AM: Air Arabia to Sharjah, Fly Dubai to Dubai, Jazeera Airways to Kuwait, Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong, Singapore Airlines, several Nepal Airlines flights, and one of four daily flights by Qatar Airways to Doha. Jazeera Airways, FlyDubai, and Thai AirAsia have applied and got permission from CAAN to begin regular flights to Bhairawa’s Gautam Buddha International Airport. Starting 9 November, FlyDubai will start making a stopover in Bhairawa before flying on to Kathmandu. Immigration, customs and security are all fully functional in Bhairawa. In Kathmandu, the next phase of the airport upgrade includes converting the current international terminal for domestic operations, the construction of a new international terminal where the domestic departure area is now, as well as moving the hangars and the Nepal Army Air Wing to the eastern side of the runway. The apron area will also double its parking space for widebody jets. This is part of a Airport Capacity Enhancement Project that was initially funded through a $80 million loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the entire masterplan is expected to cost $800 million. This project is the latest upgrade to Nepal’s only international airport since it saw its first flight in 1949. The current international and domestic terminals are too small to handle the current annual traffic volume of 8.5 million passengers a year that is growing at 20% a year.

Kathmandu airport to cut flight hours

As Kathmandu becomes more congested and polluted, and with remote online work becoming the norm, many professional Nepalis are planning to retire in Pokhara, or move there.&nbsp; With its stunning mountain panorama, balmy winters and proximity to a profusion of wilderness areas, builders are responding to this demand with new townhouses, housing development and apartments. One such block of flats is the 10-storey <a href="https://sungavaapartment.com/">Sungava Apartment</a> located at Phulbari above the Seti River, near the point where it flows into and under Pokhara. The imposing structure near Manipal Hospital is almost complete, and on a recent visit the site was strewn with huge boulders unearthed while digging the foundation.&nbsp; The Seti brought down these boulders during a gigantic flood that geologists estimate happened 800 years ago when a chunk of Annapurna IV broke off and ploughed into the glacier below. Today, Sungava (means ‘orchid’) sits safely on a high terrace, 100m above the blue-green Seti and commands a view of Dhaulagiri, Annapurna South, Machapuchre, Annapurna III and IV.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024102411104_5f8fc736c86ea3c08d7bef43bb727081d3cc1a2caa55ae2b441717e6044de7e9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2024102411104_5f8fc736c86ea3c08d7bef43bb727081d3cc1a2caa55ae2b441717e6044de7e9" data-rendition-name="original" width="2016" height="1512" loading="lazy" alt="High living below the Himalaya NT"> </figure>  The soil here is conglomerate that has solidified like concrete, and the boulders were extracted by heavy earthmovers. It is intriguing to think that these metamorphic rocks as big as cars, rounded by glacial grinding, were once a part of a much higher Annapurna IV. Even for those with little interest in geology, Sungava is an ideal place to contemplate the tectonic forces that pushed these peaks into the sky to be sculpted into delicate shapes by wind, snow, earthquake and avalanche over millions of years. The view of the Himalayan panorama from Sungava’s many balconies are breathtaking when not obscured by clouds, or the haze that drifts in from across the southern border. On most days, just watching the towering pyramid of Machapuchre (Tamu name: कतासुँ क्लिको) play hide and seek with the clouds is mesmerising. There are rocks aplenty at Phulbari, and it is probably the flowers that grew along the flat terraces e that gave the place its flowery name. The boulders will hopefully be turned into a rock garden while landscaping. An nearby restaurant complex is making the best use of the stones in its design, using flat rocks as outdoor benches and tables. Sungava was designed by the husband-wife architect team of Deepak Sherchan and Jyoti Joshi of <a href="https://thedarkmermaidamarbshrestha.blogspot.com/2013/12/creative-builders-collaborative-cbc.html">Creative Builders Collaborative (CBC)</a>, which also built Heritage Plaza, Indreni Apartment and numerous other projects in Nepal. Sadbhavana retains CBC’s trademark Newari-style masonry and here it borrows from the orange brickwork of the old town of Pokhara, integrating it with modern design elements. A few of those heritage houses are still standing in Ganesh Tole and Ram Krishna Tole in Pokhara’s old quarter.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024102411108_5eb64a4885961b6d30781cefeb1e8a313da313ac5227c7a66b60f0c7d48d6fab.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2024102411108_5eb64a4885961b6d30781cefeb1e8a313da313ac5227c7a66b60f0c7d48d6fab" data-rendition-name="original" width="1362" height="595" loading="lazy" alt="High living below the Himalaya NT"> </figure>  About 400m from the apartment past a bend on the river, and down below three tiers of terraces in the canyon is a suspension bridge. Below it, the Seti is still swollen with post-monsoon flow as it tumbles away in a hurry to head down south.&nbsp; Back at the apartment, it is quiet, far away from the hubbub of Lakeside a 15 minute drive away, and in the lap of greenery. There are 52 units at Sungava and it already has a close-knit prospective community of professionals, including doctors, publishers, engineers, and businesspeople from the renewable energy and IT sectors.&nbsp; Some residents say they opted for a second home in Pokhara to make it a ‘base camp’ to explore the Annapurnas with its many hiking trails made newly accessible with new roads. With the NRN citizenship law, overseas Nepalis can now also buy the flats. &nbsp; The floor plans include options for north and south-facing 3-bedroom apartments with verandas, and the facility has underground parking has EV charging, heated pool, sauna and gym. There are still some unsold apartments with panoramic views of the mountains and one can imagine oneself at the kitchen with its huge window, humming a ditty while preparing breakfast: “खाना पकाउँ हिमाल हेरेर...”

High living below the Himalaya

When the United Nations held its Summit of the Future at its headquarters in New York in September, many world leaders, including Nepal’s Prime Minister K P Oli, highlighted the effect of climate breakdown in increasing the frequency and intensity of natural disasters. What did not get as much attention was the long term impact of the climate crisis on food production. In fact, heat stress, weather extremes and the consequences on rain-fed agriculture is already being felt worldwide, undermining the chances of the <a href="https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/">UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)</a> being met by 2030.&nbsp; The SDG’s 17 targets commit countries like Nepal to reduce poverty and inequality, end malnutrition, protect the natural environment, and ensure that citizens all enjoy health, justice and prosperity without leaving anyone behind.&nbsp; However, besides the impact of climate breakdown on agricultural production, in Nepal the area under cultivation is impacted by urban expansion, falling productivity and the need for expensive inputs like fertiliser and pesticides.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241019041052_626413c5baf4dae407ac9579231b41daeb51510aa636b75aeb7489d94cca6a62.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241019041052_626413c5baf4dae407ac9579231b41daeb51510aa636b75aeb7489d94cca6a62" data-rendition-name="original" width="999" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="urban agriculture in Kathmandu"> <figcaption>Kathmandu's urban sprawl is eating into its fertile cultivable lands. Photo: TAYLOR MASON</figcaption> </figure>  Now, a new study led by Nepali researcher Prajal Pradhan at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands looks at how urban agriculture may offer a solution to falling food production and meeting SDG targets. The researchers evaluated 1,450 publications exploring the contributions of urban agriculture with both positive and negative effects, and published their findings in the journal Cells Report Sustainability. Urban agriculture can help achieve 17 SDGs, positively influencing 81 targets. However, it could also undermine 51 goals.&nbsp; Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-vanishing-land">The vanishing land</a>, Taylor Mason “Urban agriculture offers immense potential for sustainable development, but realising this potential depends crucially on adopting practices that minimise its adverse effects while maximising its benefits,” Pradhan explains. Urban agriculture can substantially enhance urban food security, provide employment to the urban poor, serve as ground water recharge in built-up areas, and preserve open spaces that can serve as safe havens during disasters like earthquakes. However, it also presents problems like the potential health risks from contamination and the need for expensive inputs. &nbsp; “Urban agriculture plays a definitive role in advancing the SDGs, but achieving this requires tailored, context-specific solutions that address the unique challenges of different regions,” says Yuanchao Hu of Wuhan University in China and who is a researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “But it needs equitable access and rigorous management of environmental risks.”&nbsp; Rapid urbanisation is eating into Nepal’s most fertile agricultural land, which means farming in remaining open spaces inside cities can be a viable alternative, especially as food prices rise.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241019041052_7b7c9413086226fbdc630d45acf772cfa1ced77a8970b9056ec5ec7e5226fdf8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20241019041052_7b7c9413086226fbdc630d45acf772cfa1ced77a8970b9056ec5ec7e5226fdf8" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="999" loading="lazy" alt="urban agriculture in Kathmandu"> <figcaption>A vegetable patch in between new houses in Thimi. Photo: TAYLOR MASON</figcaption> </figure>  “The conversion of Nepal’s most fertile land into cities is a severe problem,” Pradhan told Nepali Times. “Crop cultivation, horticulture, agroforestry, beekeeping, livestock rearing, or aquaculture can all be farming activities within and around cities.”&nbsp; The study makes recommendations for sustainable practices that build on the positive aspects of urban agriculture while mitigating the downsides, thereby promoting more resilient cities in future. Research shows that urban agriculture has been helping many countries attain SDG targets by enhancing food security and biodiversity while helping education and preservation of open spaces.&nbsp; Indeed, many farmers from the hinterland who have settled in Kathmandu Valley or other urban areas of the country have been practicing urban agriculture, leasing neighbourhood patches or cultivating roof gardens both out of necessity because of inflation and falling income to grow their own food, and also as a fulfilling hobby. Saurav Dhakal, a sustainability advocate with Story Cycle and now research fellow at the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand, says there are socio-economic and environmental benefits of urban agriculture. “It provides benefits to all urban dwellers, regardless of their income status,” says Dhakal, “families get fresh food, and there are many other benefits like water retention, heat regulation and biodiversity. These are all public goods, so special government incentives may be needed.” It is not unusual to see vegetable patches and even paddy fields within inner city Kathmandu where an older generation of farmers are using available fertile land and <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/rooftop-gardens-kathmandu,1415">roof gardens to produce fresh, nutritious food </a>to reduce their dependence on food items that have to be bought after being trucked in from large distances.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2024101905100_1291ce98dbbb8caed8702ac4b1d469b3e13016d7ecaaf3bfd5f91c974d3c0c77.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="2024101905100_1291ce98dbbb8caed8702ac4b1d469b3e13016d7ecaaf3bfd5f91c974d3c0c77" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="999" loading="lazy" alt="urban agriculture in Kathmandu"> <figcaption>An older generation of farmers are using any available fertile land to continue farming but it is getting more and more difficult. Photo: TAYLOR MASON </figcaption> </figure>  Nepal’s urban population grew rapidly from only 3.6% in 1991 to 25% today. There is large outmigration from the mountains to peri-urban areas of the Tarai, to Kathmandu Valley and Pokhara, with many young men then moving abroad for work. Kathmandu Valley’s population has swelled to nearly 3 million, and is growing at 6.5% a year. Dilip Shrestha, 71, used to work for Nepal Food Corporation, so he knew firsthand about inflation, shortages and vegetables with pesticide residue. So, when he designed his new house in Kathmandu, he built a spacious roof where he grows cucumber, ginger, garlic, coriander, onions, tomatoes, chili, beans, okra, pumpkin and lettuce. His family eats healthier, and he has reduced dependence on the market.&nbsp; The co-author of the Cell Reports Sustainability journal article, Daya Raj Subedi who is a PhD candidate at Beijing Forestry University, says urban agriculture also promotes inclusion and psycho-social wellbeing.&nbsp; He says, “A crucial finding of the study is the identification of opportunities and challenges associated with urban agriculture, it can promote sustainable transformation of society.” In Banepa, 55-year-old Bijaya Manandhar in her lifetime has watched the fertile farms of her neighbourhood that used to supply vegetables to Kathmandu, now completely built up with no open space left. The pandemic lockdown prompted her to turn to the family’s <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/rooftop-agriculture-on-the-roof-of-the-world">ancestral livelihood by growing food</a> not on terrace farms, but on the roof terrace. Manandhar is now a part of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/rooftop-agriculture-on-the-roof-of-the-world%5C%5C">कौसी खेती र करेसाबारी क्रान्ती</a> (Rooftop Farming and Garden Revolution) which has an online membership of 52,000, and awards annual prizes to women who excel in urban agriculture.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241019041052_7257f5def8f823f35a799fa6f6825e153f2ffa406ac11325d4fe74049b79e96d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20241019041052_7257f5def8f823f35a799fa6f6825e153f2ffa406ac11325d4fe74049b79e96d" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="736" loading="lazy" alt="urban agriculture in Kathmandu"> <figcaption>Rooftop farming is gaining popularity as a form of urban agriculture. </figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241019041052_beff1a4494ce896dd8fd383ee1f518e5448bcf7ea8bb138255391c7bcb9769ed.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20241019041052_beff1a4494ce896dd8fd383ee1f518e5448bcf7ea8bb138255391c7bcb9769ed" data-rendition-name="original" width="4000" height="3000" loading="lazy" alt="urban agriculture in Kathmandu"> </figure>  Pradhan says the challenge now is to upscale such examples of successful urban agricultural practices so they support Neal’s efforts to meet SDG targets. He adds, “Crop cultivation around cities can be protected by land use plans and regulations. Promoting community-based agriculture, including rooftop gardens, requires community engagement and public-private partnerships across the food value chain.”&nbsp; Such support would accelerate the popularity of existing rooftop farming and community gardens in Kathmandu Valley, or kitchen garden initiatives in Pokhara, and building on traditional farming practices that are preserved and integrated into urban settings like in Bhaktapur and Banepa. In Lalitpur, the Women Entrepreneurship Facilitation Center promotes urban farming enhancing both sustainability and empowerment.&nbsp; Another co-author of the report, Yuanchao Hu from China says followup research of the team will aim to identify good practices in local urban agriculture practices. He adds, “There are examples of urban agriculture that optimise sustainability, ensuring that it remains a viable solution for cities globally while countries try to meet SDG targets.” Prajal Pradhan, Daya Raj Subedi, Kshitij Dahal, Yuanchao Hu, Prakriti Gurung, Sijal Pokharel, Sagar Kafle, Biplav Khatri, Sudeeksha Basyal, Monika Gurung, and Aruna Joshi. Urban Agriculture matters for sustainable development. Cell Reports Sustainability, 1:100217, 2024. [DOI: 10.1016/j.crsus.2024.100217] Prajal Pradhan (<a href="mailto:p.pradhan@rug.nl">p.pradhan@rug.nl</a>) This article is brought to you by <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/" target="_blank">Nepali Times</a>, in collaboration with <a href="https://inpsjapan.com/en/" target="_blank">INPS Japan</a> and <a href="https://sgi-peace.org/" target="_blank">Soka Gakkai International</a>, in consultative status with UN ECOSOC.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20240630110640_30c3782f9c09219bf1c249b51483a3cfb7a53a06d117d2aebd23ca7080d12758.jpg" data-media-id="editor_14" data-image-id="20240630110640_30c3782f9c09219bf1c249b51483a3cfb7a53a06d117d2aebd23ca7080d12758" data-rendition-name="original" width="680" height="103" loading="lazy" alt="SDG logo"> </figure>

Back to the land in the cities

The 700-year-old Lakshmi Narasingha temple in Bhaktapur houses a rare half-lion and half-human incarnation of Lord Vishnu carrying the Goddess Lakshmi. The temple was destroyed in the 1934 mega earthquake that killed 10,000 people and destroyed many monuments in Kathmandu Valley. It was rebuilt by a German project in the 1980s, but as a single-storey structure instead of its original two-tier pagoda design.&nbsp; With new findings from in-depth research, Bhaktapur municipality began re-restoring the temple in 2021, preserving its original architecture.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241017131016_2fae38cce543ad7b1f6de632feb3e212e08ed1acedd747830e949d7b8e878f18.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20241017131016_2fae38cce543ad7b1f6de632feb3e212e08ed1acedd747830e949d7b8e878f18" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="In with the old in Nepal NT"> </figure>  “Our temples and heritage sites hold deep meaning. It is disheartening to witness how often they lose their original elements, whether by design or accident,” explains Kumar Chawal of the Consumer Committee of Bhaktapur. “There is a need to preserve our architecture and protect its historical value for future generations. Otherwise, we risk losing a vital part of our identity.” The Laksmi Narsingha restoration is similar to the Bhai Dega temple in Patan Darbar Square which also collapsed in 1934, but was rebuilt with a Moghul-style dome by the Rana government at the time. Only two months before the 2015 earthquake, heritage conservationists had started to rebuild Bhai Dega as the original three-tier based on early photographs. But priorities shifted when four other temples in the square were brought down by the 7.8M earthquake on 25 April 2015.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241017131016_697ea707d9ad163be5de5f2efbf5b70d3cab771adcc22f0fae6bf937c6cb0130.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20241017131016_697ea707d9ad163be5de5f2efbf5b70d3cab771adcc22f0fae6bf937c6cb0130" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="In with the old in Nepal NT"> </figure>  This showed how damage to monuments in Kathmandu Valley spanned from one earthquake to the next. Bhai Dega restoration remains half-complete to this day because money for its restoration ran out.&nbsp; Whereas Bhai Dega restoration was done by the Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust with grants from western embassies and international foundations, in Bhaktapur it is the municipality itself that allocated the Rs30.7 million needed to restore the Lakshmi Narasingha temple. The expected date of completion is early 2025. The municipality and local communities are focusing on two main aspects: preserving the past and promoting localisation. The restoration team has designed a blueprint for the temple by using historical photographs and insights from older generations.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241017131016_182882fdc393c99e70d1d0490319e415229563666c4934e3a582426ebf00ca30.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20241017131016_182882fdc393c99e70d1d0490319e415229563666c4934e3a582426ebf00ca30" data-rendition-name="original" width="1200" height="560" loading="lazy" alt="In with the old in Nepal NT"> </figure>  “At first, the Lakshmi Narasingha temple had only one entrance, but during the demolition process, we uncovered the foundations of four doors. Now, we are restoring all of them. This is an example of how our ancient structures have changed over time, often without our knowledge,” says Chawal. “Constructing temples is not like building houses. They carry historical and spiritual values, which is why they hold a special place in our hearts,” he adds. By replicating ancient design elements and rebuilding the temple as accurately as possible to its original form, the team has stayed true to Bhaktapur’s soul. But the restoration also revived ancient techniques that were in danger of being forgotten, generating employment for woodcarvers, masons, and contractors. The community of Bhaktapur’s Gahiti neighbourhood near the famous Nyatapola Temple has also set aside specific days for locals to volunteer in the reconstruction work. This has encouraged young people to take pride in ownership of their heritage. Families have also supported the effort by donating funds for bells, the temple pinnacle, and other structural features to the temple.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20241017131016_db850ec0c084cdbe54f65bee92dad2ad8122d20fd60ec87ec086fbb9d2f72bd6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20241017131016_db850ec0c084cdbe54f65bee92dad2ad8122d20fd60ec87ec086fbb9d2f72bd6" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="In with the old in Nepal NT"> </figure>  “I feel at peace knowing I have contributed my sweat to restoring this temple,” said one volunteer. “It is our duty to preserve our temples and heritage. The Nyatapola area will look magical once this temple is completed.” Community mobilisation is a long-standing tradition in Bhaktapur. In the past, locals have actively participated in the restoration of other temples in the city, such as Bhairav and Nyatapola fostering a strong sense of ownership. This collective engagement has not only been crucial in preserving the city's historical monuments but also in strengthening the bond between local communities and their heritage, says officials at the municipality. While securing funding is essential, and the municipality showed it values heritage conservation, the Lakshmi Narasingha restoration is proof that active involvement and sense of responsibility of the local community is as important, if not more. Local involvement also means that the monuments will be cared for into the future, When locals take ownership of these efforts, the restored monuments are not only protected in the present but are also cared for in the future.