A young man chanted slogans condemning exorbitant interest rates and demanding waiver of bank interest even as Prime Minister Dahal arrived in New Baneshwore around 2pm on Tuesday to attend a program to mark International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination that is celebrated annually on March 21.
Two other young men also started chanting slogans while the police personnel deployed there tried to control the first young man. The police covered the mouths of the three youths while taking them under control.
Uddhav Basnet, 23, from Solukhumbu, Biplav Khadka, 18, from Bajhang and Som Sharma from Baglung are currently in the custody of the New Baneshwore Metropolitan Police Circle and the police are considering whether or not to try them for misconduct. .
Kathmandu district police spokesman SP Sitaram Rijal told Setopati that the youths were taken under control after they invaded a program organized by someone else and chanted slogans on issues unrelated to the program.
He revealed that the youths said they were affiliated with the Nepal Independent Youth Campaign which demands drastic reduction of interest rate from banks.
The act of physically shutting down protesters in a democratic country with a Constitution that guarantees freedom of expression has been widely condemned on social media.
But the ruling parties appear to have made light of the rare and serious incident in democratic Nepal. Haribol Gajurel, Prime Minister Dahal’s political adviser, told Setopati that he was unaware of the incident when Setopati contacted him around 8am Wednesday.
This scribe ended the conversation by saying “we will talk again after gathering information about the incident” but did not answer the phone when contacted an hour later.
Prakash Sharan Mahat, a spokesman for the Nepali Congress who is about to join the Dahal government, said the act of shutting down the protesters was likely a decision made on the spot by deployed police personnel and not on government instruction. . “You can’t shut the mouths of citizens to gag them, no matter why that happened,” he said.
Kathmandu Police Chief SSP Dan Bahadur Karki also revealed that no such instructions were issued. “Can there be an instruction to gag people? There is no practice of gagging people. That is not necessary and it is not done”, stressed Karki. “It may have been a coincidence as the camera clicked capturing every second of the same nature. This incident has been exaggerated.”
