One month after six young men from a village in western Nepal were lynched by a village mob after one of them professed his love for a young girl from a different caste, the families of the victims fear a cover-up.
On 24 May, Nabaraj BK gathered two dozen of his friends from Ranagaun of Jajarkot and walked to meet his love interest in Setogaun across the Bheri River in Rukum. Being from a ‘lower’ Dalit caste, the parents of the girl were against the relationship, and were trying to her married to someone from their Thakuri caste.
When they approached the girl’s house, almost the entire village chased the young men down to the river, beat them with sickles and picks, and threw them into the river. Some of their bodies were found many days later.
Nabaraj’s parents Munalal and Urmila from Ranagaun of Jajarkot are waiting for justice, as are the families of the other five killed.
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BK’s parents had hoped their only son would take care of them in their old age when he joined the Nepal Police. He was good in studies and sports, and popular in the area. His dream of getting married before going off for police training scared his mother, but now what scares her more is that there will be no justice for her, and five other families.
“I’ll support you after I join the police, he would say,” Urmila BK said, sobbing. “He died because he was in love. Our hearts have not accepted that he is dead, and we wonder who will take the side of us poor people. They killed our son and now they are killing justice.”
Nabaraj had won dozens of medals and certificates in school, district-level national championships and they are still proudly displayed on a shelf in his room. The blue uniform he got as a NCC cadet is still hanging by a peg. Upen seeing his son’s body, Munalal BK has fainted and is still in a daze.
The Police have filed a case saying the crimes were based on caste violence, and sent it to the district level court in Rukum. Twenty-nine other villagers from Setogaun are also accused of murder, and have also confessed to the crime.
However, the victims’ families are worried that the police report, post-mortem report of the bodies of the deceased that were fished out of the Bheri River have been doctored.
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Nabaraj met the girl at the Presidential Running Shield Sports Competition two years ago in the Rukum capital of Khalanga. Because he was so good in football, Nabaraj won much applause from the crowd. After that, they became Facebook friends and dreamt of being life partners.
Nabaraj had brought the girl home with her young brother, but Urmila BK had no idea about their relationship. “When she first came, I thought she was my daughter’s friend. I only found out later,” Urmila said.
Seeing a photo of his son with the girl on their son’s phone, Nabaraj’s parents were scared and tried to convince him to break off the affair. Munalal BK was so worried by an ‘upper’ caste backlash, he even took his son’s phone with the photo to the girl’s uncle Indra Bahadur Malla.
But instead of accepting the information, Indra Bahadur verbally threatened Munalal. “What is this? Do you also want to be a Malla Thakuri’s in-laws?” he told Munalal, who was so frightened he sought advice from MP of the area, Bhairav Sundar Shrestha and Dalit activist Gopal Nepali.
Sudip Khadka was among Nabaraj’s friends who was in the group. “We were surrounded on all four sides, even the people who we played football with started to attack us,” he recalled. “Hundreds of people came out with sticks, stones, sickles and hoes and started chasing us.”
Being outnumbered, many of the injured youth started running, and risked their lives by jumping into the river. But there was a crowd waiting on the other side, who started beating them as they emerged out of the water.
“The boys were attacked after they had turned back home,” admited DSP Kishor Kumar Shrestha. But the police is being criticised for arresting the victims instead of the attackers on that day, just standing around blowing their whistles, and not rescuing Nabaraj while he was being beaten, and after he was thrown in the water. Nabaraj’s body was found at 8PM downstream.
“So many people chased us and beat us, but the police arrested us instead. They didn’t even ask us about our friends,” recalls Lal Bahadur Khadka, 17, who was also injured. According to Khadka, the police knew six people were missing, but did not do anything to look for them.
Sandesh Shahi and his friend looked for his brother for ten days until they finally found his decomposed body ten days later 30km downstream. “The divers from the APF were there, and they did look around but not very carefully,” said Shahi. He doubts that justice will be served since the condition of the corpses were not accurately recorded by the police.
Another of Nabaraj’s friend’s body was tied with a rope and had a broken hand, but the police report never mentioned this. Other bodies had broken necks, teeth, legs, hands, damaged eyes, chest injuries and their lungs showed signs they were dead before being dumped in the water. None of this was recorded.
The second day after the murders at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, Shahi found Tikaram Sunar’s body from the river. There was blood all over Sunar’s mouth, nose, and ear, and that was not recorded either by the police.
The body of Lokendra Sunar was found 40km downstream with his hands tied behind his back, on 30 May. But, the police record said it was caught in a fishing net. The last body to be found was that of Govinda Shahi, who showed signs of having been killed, buried, exhumed again and then dumped in the river.
“Govinda did not have any of his teeth, his forehead, and nose were cut, and he was found with his neck broken. After seeing the body’s condition, they buried the body, and after the public outcry, they took out the body and threw it in the river,” said Shahi.
The families of the victims and eye-witnesses also accuse the doctor in the district hospital of faking the post-mortem report so that the crimes cannot be attributed to the villagers. The police had taken videos and pictures, clearly showing the wounds, but the post mortem report does not mention the wounds and says the river caused the injuries. There is now suspicion of collusion between the police and the community.
Despite the serious loss of life, MPs from Jajarkot and Rukum West have not raised the issue, there has been no meetings with the Mayor of Chaurajahari Municipality Vishal Sharma and the mayor of Bheri Municipality Chandra Prakash Ghartimagar. All are from the ruling Nepal Communist Party.
Some politicians appear to be trying to play down the caste element in the crime. Mayor of Chaurajahari Municipality Vishal Sharma said the boys died because they jumped into the Bheri River and did not accept that they were killed first.
After the murder, the country has been outraged. #DalitLivesMatter has been trending on Twitter and a petition with over 20,000 signatures is circulating in social media. International organisations such as EU Delegation, the UN high commissioner, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International have released statement in solidarity with the victim’s family and demanding for justice.
Rights groups fear that just like in many previous crimes against Dalits, there is evidence of an attempt at cover-up by the local police. As before, it is the ‘higher’ caste people who once more literally get away with murder.
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