Cops kin withdraw strike

DEV KUMAR SUNUWAR

KATHMANDU, Nov 13 - Family members of policemen sentenced to judicial custody for leading two separate revolts in June have withdrawn their strike on Wednesday after Home Minister Bamdev Gautam assured them that the policemen would be

reinstated to their earlier positions.

Requesting the families to take ...

Family members of 35 policemen from the Armed Police Force (AFP) at Shamshergunj-based APF battalion, as well as 45 junior policemen of Nepalgunj-based Riot Control Police Battalion wanted their kin released.

They staged a strike at Santibatika, Ratnapark after their appeals to members of parliament, the prime minister and rights activists failed to bring the desired result.

Also on strike were those implicated in revolts in Gorkha and Parbat districts earlier in the year.

Khabira Thapa from Surkhet, along with her two-and-half-month old daughter was one of those on strike.

duty when mutineers took their senior officers hostage on June 21.

"The seniors wrongly implicated him," said Thapa, weeping as she clutched the medicine for her pneumonic daughter. "I don't have any money either to treat my child or to buy her warm clothes.

She said there's no point returning to her village as the family's only source of income is in prison.

A special APF court had suspended Thapa, along with 34 other junior policemen and sentenced them to judicial custody on the charge of breaking discipline when some junior policemen at Shamshergunj-based APF battalion took their senior officers hostage accusing them of ill treatment and irregularities.

Among the 23 women on strike, eight have babies aged between two months to two years tagging along. Three babies suffer from diarrhoea and two have pneumonia.

The days, for Prema Khatri, a mother of a year-old son, begin with hope but end in despair with no news of her husband trickling through. She had demanded that the government reinvestigate the case and do justice to her husband Bishnu Khatri, then constable at Nepalgunj-based riot control police battalion. She claims her husband was not on duty that day.

"I seek justice," said Khatri, "for those policemen put behind bars despite their absence from duty on those days.

"Junior officers had raised their voice against injustice, ill-treatment and corruption among senior officers in the barracks," Khatri added. "Is demanding basic amenities like good food and shelter a crime for which they deserve punishment harsher than what is meted out to murderers?

The family members were in no mood to return home until their kin in custody were released.

Earlier, DIG Binod Singh at Nepal Police headquarters had said that none of the policemen who were deployed to provide security for citizens and the country, but had instead, picked up weapons for unlawful causes, would be spared.