The day justice died

While protesters were torching the Special Government Attorney Office at Mandala on Tuesday, they shouted slogans denouncing government corruption.

They did not seem to know that in reality the Government Attorney’s office was carrying out active investigations and prosecuting multiple cases of government corruption. Their case files have now been reduced to ashes.

While attackers ransacked the building room by room and and burnt it down, they said they were protesting the government’s inability to catch the person who raped and murdered of 13-year-old Nirmala Panta in Kanchanpur seven years ago.

In reality, the District Government Attorney’s Office has been carrying out and directing investigations against rapists and abusers whose victims were even younger than Nirmala.

As an ordinary Nepali citizen before joining the Government Attorney’s Office, I had read about Nirmala’s story in the media. It was a major case that shook the nation, and the biggest rape case I had heard about.

But once I was behind my desk as a Government Attorney myself, not a day went by when there was at least one new rape investigation file. This was a serial horror on a nationwide scale. The rapists were not faceless strangers: many were fathers, brothers, stepfathers, teachers, drivers who knew the survivors.

I found all age groups from all parts of Nepal on those charge sheets. And every file I carried to the courtroom was in the hope of at least someone who wanted the crime against them recognised and the perpetrator punished. Now, all those files are gone.

The news from Singha Darbar that the government’s data centre was saved from arsonists this week was a relief. But we lost all our records. The evidence was never digitised, there were no backup files. They lived only on paper, in ink, in fragile white file folders with green strings.

The day justice died — Photo: HEMANTA SHRESTHA

When the building burned, so did the only record of those crimes and the identity of the criminals.

Imagine entire basements filled with such files: each representing a victim, a face, a life. More than 10,000 such cases are now smouldering heaps of ash.

Singha Durbar can be rebuilt brick by brick, just as it was after the earthquake. Who is going to rebuild these case files?

The social media is cruel: it shows homes of politicians stashed with cash and charred dollar bills. But the media did not show an entire building full of criminal case files going up in flames. The smoke that filled Kathmandu’s sky on Tuesday carried away with it the hopes of justice of thousands of victims, mostly young women.

Our duty as Government Attorneys is to direct criminal investigations, prosecute criminal cases, plead in courtrooms, make appeals. On a normal busy day we prosecute at least five criminal cases involving survivors and perpetrators.

THAT DAY

On 8 September, when the GenZ protesters were gathering at the Mandala outside, we were at the Police Club, attending the first ever Women Government Attorneys’ Conference. We wore our brightest blue sari uniforms and pressed blouses. Our heads held high, we celebrated our success as government attorneys who had led the prosecution of the highest number of cases involving violence against women.

But the day had other plans for us. By 4 pm the program was halted after protesters were shot outside Parliament. The Attorney General directed us to go home immediately. As the hall emptied, a small group of us young women officers and one senior female advocate walked together through Bhadrakali towards our office.

There was an angry mob approaching us. The moment they saw us in our official dress, they turned on us with verbal abuses — words so horrendous that it would have been enough to prosecute a slander suit.

Heads and eyes lowered we walked on. They started spitting on us. Obviously, they were pouring out their anger against the government on us civil servants. But they had no idea that the senior female advocate on whose coat they spat had pioneered the law granting Nepali women equal property rights.

To us, she was not just a lawyer, she was a hero and a figure we had worshipped in our law books. Her name appears across Supreme Court documents for setting a precedent.

We ran to save ourselves from their wrath and reached our Special Government Attorney Office. The mob stayed outside. We waited two hours in silence, praying fervently until the street was calm enough for us to slip away and find our way home.

The next day, 9 September, was much worse. The protesters had already torched Parliament, Singha Durbar and the nearby Supreme Court. Then they came to set the Government Attorney Office alight.

As a Nepali, I can understand the anger. But as a Government Attorney, I carry a deep scar. There is an immense void and sorrow.

This is not about the loss of a building, or being spat at. It is about the silent victims whose stories were stored in all those thousands of files. Many of the survivors do not even know that their struggle for justice has ended.

We are government employees never affiliated with any political party, doing our work honestly and independently. In the name of demanding justice, they destroyed the very place that delivered it.

Mamata Shrestha is an Assistant District Government Attorney.