Ganga Maya Adhikari, who has been on a prolonged hunger strike for the last six years demanding justice for her murdered son, has intensified her efforts in a final battle that may well cost her her life.
Accusing Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal of being indifferent to her demands, Ganga Maya has refused to take saline and water from this week. She says she will not drink a drop of water unless her son's murderers are arrested.
Last week, Ganga Maya had given a five-day ultimatum for Dahal to bring the perpetrators to book. On Thursday, when the ultimatum ended, Home Secretary Narayan Gopal Malego and Health Secretary Senendra Raj Uprety visited her at Bir Hospital. But she refused to talk to them.
Ganga Maya's 17-year-old son, Krishna Adhikari, was killed in Chitwan in 2004, allegedly by Maoist cadre. Originally from Phujel village of Gorkha, Krishna was in Chitwan to visit a relative. Ganga Maya claims that the Maoists mistook him for an informant and killed him.
Six years ago, Ganga Maya and her husband Nanda Prasad began a hunger strike to apply pressure on the government to arrest and take action against their son's killers. Nanda Prasad died on the 334th day of the strike in September 2014 but his body is still at the Bir Hospital morgue. Ganga Maya has refused to cremate her husband's body unless her son's murderers are thrown behind bars.
Two days before being elected as Prime Minister for the second time last month, Dahal had referred to the Adhikari case when blaming the UML for conspiring to jail him and other Maoist leaders for war crimes.
Ganga Maya has filed a case against some Maoist cadre and sympathisers in connection with her son's murder, but the Maoists have managed to stop the police from arresting any one of the accused.