Nepal cops, protesters blamed for violence

Reuters/AFPKathmanduNepali police and protesters both used extreme violence during recent protests in the lowland Tarai region, Human Rights Watch said yesterday in a report that included witness accounts of police shooting a teen in the face at point-blank range. The report documents the killings of 16 members of the public and nine police between August 24 and September 11, as protests against Nepal’s new constitution raged in the southern plains. More than 40 people were killed during the unrest. The protests, which continue but are now less violent, have obstructed trade from neighbouring India, leading to crippling fuel shortages in the land-locked country. In the case of each death examined by Human Rights Watch, it found “no evidence that any of these victims, including the police, was posing a threat” when they were killed. “There is, in short, compelling evidence of criminal attacks on defenceless police by protesters, and abundant evidence in several cases of serious crimes by police against protesters and bystanders, including disproportionate use of force and extrajudicial killings,” the report said. The report cites four witnesses from the southern town of Janakpur, which was rocked by protests on September 11, who said police dragged Nitu Yadav, 14, from bushes where he had been hiding and shot him “dead in the face at point-blank range”. “Doctors who subsequently examined Yadav’s body confirmed that it bore injuries consistent with this account,” the report said. A home ministry official said he had not yet read the report. “Our law is that police and armed police may not use force against peaceful protesters,” he said. “But, when the protests are violent, and people are throwing petrol bombs at the police, then they have to make sure of their own safety.” The official declined to say whether there would be a review of the police actions in the Tarai. “Nepal’s new leadership should take immediate steps to stem the tide of abuse that has overtaken Nepal the last few months,” Brad Adams, Asia director at HRW, said in a statement.“The government needs to order investigations, and publicly call on all security forces to desist from any excessive use of force.” The killing of Yadav, along with four others in Janakpur and neighbouring Mahottari, followed the lynching of police assistant sub-inspector Thaman Bishwokarma, who was killed by protesters in Mahottari. The violence, which resulted in much of southern Nepal being placed under curfew, escalated after the killing of eight police in Tikapur in far western Nepal on August 24.Adams urged the new government of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, who was sworn in on Monday, to “stem the tide of abuse” and publicly call on the security forces to desist from excessive use of force. Nepal’s Madhesi minority dominates the southern plains, home to around half the country’s population, and have long complained of being treated like second-class citizens in their country. Many were denied citizenship until the introduction of a 2006 law that sought to end discrimination against non-Nepali speakers born and raised in the country. They say the federal structure laid out in Nepal’s new constitution, adopted on September 20, will leave them under-represented in parliament.