: The Maoists have recently forwarded a fresh list of names of “martyrs” to the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers (PMO) for inclusion in the list that was approved by the Maoist-led cabinet last February.
The officials at the PMO are in a great dilemma over whether to include the new names in the February list.
A senior bureaucrat said that the Maoists have been exerting pressure on the PMO officials to accept the new list that includes additional names as martyrs.
On Sunday, outgoing Minister for Peace and Reconstruction Janardan Sharma called PMO officials to accept the new list. But the officials could not convey any decision to Sharma.
“We are now cross-checking the new list with the old one to find out the number of new names. It is very difficult for us to incorporate the new names in the old one approved by the cabinet just three months ago,†a PMO official told myrepublica.com on Sunday.
The officials at the PMO, however, said that it is difficult for them to incorporate the new names in the old list.
In a controversial move on February 27, the cabinet had declared around 8,000 people killed during decade-old insurgency, acting on a proposal from Sharma.
Though the government took the decision three months ago, the actual number and the names of the martyrs have not been made public, terming the information as secret. PMO officials said they are still counting the number of the martyrs due to incomplete facts related to name, caste, birth place, date of death and so on, of the martyrs.
The process of the decision as well as the numbe of ´martyrs´ was questioned at that time.
Initially, the list was questioned by the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), which was a partner in the then Maoist-led government, and Nepali Congress. But the CPN-UML silenced its protest later after the cabinet declared Rishi Prasad, a UML leader who was killed in the course of the Constituent Assembly election, a martyr.
It is general practice for the cabinet to receive any proposal related to martyrdom from the Home Ministry. Had the general norms been followed, the ministry would have collected the possible names for the honor and present before the cabinet with justification why the individuals deserve martyrdom. But Home Ministry officials revealed that the ministry was not involved in the whole process. This time around, a Maoist NGO — Sahid Pratisthan — had prepared the list of martyrs. The list excludes security personnel and non-Maoist people killed during the Maoist conflict.
When asked about whether his party would accept if the new names are excluded in the list of martyrs, Sharma said, “Ask the chief secretary.†kiran@myrepublica.com
Tags: communist party of nepal, list, marxist leninist, nepali congress