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Police shower bullets at youth
- Went to help, returned a corpse
POKHARA, DEC 14 - It was quarter-past nine on Friday night. Gun shot sounds saw Meghnath Baral waking up from his deep slumber. . Tired and exhausted, he soon lulled to sleep despite the rattling of bullets.
Since the past eleven days he was unable to sleep, attending to his wife, who was down with typhoid in a hospital.
The same night, Baral’s neighbour delivered a baby creating an emergency situation. Suresh Baral, Meghnath’s 20-year-old son answered to the call of duty and decided to help a neighbour in his hour of trouble. He rushed with the family to the hospital, helping them carry a bundle of clothes.
The morning after, when Meghnath woke up, the first thing he heard was that his son was killed.
"When I woke up, somebody telephoned me from the hospital saying that my son was no more," he said, narrating the chilling incidence about how the security personnel killed his innocent son overnight.
He was speeding home late night with his neighbour on a motorcycle – Ga. 1 Pa 9390 when the security personnel guarding the Rastra Bank area, fired shots and killed him instantly. Bankaji Gurung, his neighbour, with whom he went to the hospital, fell off the bike and sustained bullet injury. Baral was riding pillion.
"Security forces first stopped us at the Rastra Bank Chowk and fired shots at us," recalls Gurung from the hospital bed. "A police van stopped us first, and hardly had they started inquiring us, bullets started raining from the Rastra Bank," he said.
"My friend Baral fell down. Again bullets were fired, I also fell down unconscious and thought I was dying too," he further said.
After he regained consciousness, he picked his mobile and called up Sunita, his sister. "By then, my friend was asking for water and was still alive."
After the incident, the police van left the spot, leaving the wounded Gurung and his friend bleeding on the cold streets.
"Despite our repeated pleadings no one came forward to help us. I then got up and rode the bike. But as I arrived at the Srijana Chowk, the bike stopped. I saw a bullet hole in the petrol tank and then realised that all the fuel had gone."
"I fell down for a while unable to drag myself any further."
"When I looked from the window ~ ~ he was saying: Sister! Sister! give me water...Police shot me..." "At the other end, I saw another wounded man struggling to ride on a bike," Mani Regmi, an eyewitness, who is an official at the Department of Roads told The Kathmandu Post. "The one that was asking for water never rose. I saw a police van later picking him up," he added.
The incident left the neighbourhood, around the Rastra Bank area, horror struck as none dared to come out of their houses until late Friday.
Walls and shutters of the shops around have bullet holes here and there.
"People remained fully awake the whole night. We rang up our friends and said what was going on but never came out of our houses," says Tika Ram Sapkota, chairman of a trekking agency, who lives close to the Rastra Bank Chowk.
"Suresh was studying management at the Prithvi Narayan Campus and was one of the outstanding students," says Dhan Maya Maharjan, a next-door neighbour. "He used to study until late night. He often used to come to my room and joke merrily with my kids. So jolly he was. He is no more now," she adds between tears.
Security forces, which were kept on alert in the area, opened fire on suspicion that Maoists were speeding on a motorcycle. They fired shots for nearly one hour.
According to the police, a few days ago, Maoists came in a taxi and fired and they suspected that the two youth on the motorcycle were also Maoists and hence fired at them.
They allege that the bike was speeding with its headlight turned off, giving them the impression that they were Maoists. The postmortem could not be carried out on Saturday as the locals demanded the government pay adequate compensation to the deceased youth’s family. They have also demanded a public apology from the security forces.
The students of Prithvi Narayan Campus today issued a press statement condemning the security forces in the strongest possible words. Posted on: 2003-12-15 04:44
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