Junior employees run admin in Rukum

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NEPALGUNJ, April 14 : People of the mid-western hill district of Rukum have been deprived of essential government services after senior district-level officials left their offices without permissions from their higher-level authorities due to the fear of possible Maoist attacks, according to a report received here.

Maoists often spread rumours of attacks in the district headquarters of Musikot at any moment. Rukum is considered one of the most sensitive districts in the region from security point of view.

Although the government has issued directives barring government employees not to leave their office on any purposes, Chief District Officer (CDO) and 35 other section officers are on leave for the last four months. Nowadays, a non-gazetted officer is looking after the works that is supposed to be handled by the CDO. A section officer who was appointed as the acting CDO has also not turned up since last week.

According to Vice-Chairman of Rukum District Development Committee, Thagendra Prakash Puri, junior-level employees are staying in their respective offices and they cannot provide necessary services to the people on their own discretion.

Puri said that a delegation had met with the Prime Minister requesting him to fulfill the administrative requirement, but nothing has happened so far. Locals of Musikot said that people from far-flung villages have stopped coming to Musikot after they realised that they would not get their jobs done by the government employees. Mostly, people visit the district headquarters to get their citizenship certificates and passports from the district administrative office headed by CDO.

A government employee who arrived in Nepalgunj for his personal business said that the security officials were facing difficulties in imposing dawn-to-dust curfew in the absence of the CDO.

Refugees urge Nepal to take up their cause

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DHARAN, April 14: The Bhutanese Refugee Representative Repatriation Committee (BRRRC) on Sunday gave a memorandum to the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) Madhav Kumar Nepal urging him to solve the controversy surrounding the categorisation of the refugees.

The BRRRC urged the UML leader who is leading a delegation to Bhutan on the invitation of the Druk government to take up the issue of categorisation. He was in Itahari to participate in a cultural programme today.

At a closed two-hour session with the refugees who met him, General Secretary Nepal assured them that he would try to understand the stance of the Bhutanese government on the repatriation of the refugees to Bhutan.

The BRRRC President Suk Bahadur Subba told the reporters later that they would not accept the categorisation of the refugees that was done during the verification (at the Khudunabari camp in Jhapa). He demanded immediate publishing of verification results and begin the repatriation.

Lack of doctor poses problem

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DAMAULI, April 14:A doctor had to be called from Pokhara of Kaski district to perform post-mortems on two bodies, one of them from Gorkha district and other from Tanahu district in Damauli due to the absence of a doctor deployed in the District Public Health Office (DPHO) of Gorkha.

Dr. Silu Aryal, who was posted in the DPHO, went to Kathmandu three days earlier to participate in a seminar. Two people died in two separate incidents on Friday and Saturday and their bodies were brought to the DPHO for a post-mortem examination.

According to Dinesh Pandit, an Assistant Health Officer, the office had to call the Western Regional Health Office for a doctor.

Dr. Ojha, who arrived from the Regional Health Office, performed post-mortems on both the bodies.

Four of family among six killed

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SIRAHA, April 14 : Maoist rebels on Saturday night hacked four members of a family, including vice-chairman of Arnama VDC and his son, to death after abducting them from their respective houses. The rebels took them about two kilometres away from their homes and hacked to death, according to police.

The Defence Ministry also confirmed killings of the people who were associated with the Rastriya Prajatantra Party and the ruling Nepali Congress.

Those killed by the rebels have been identified as vice-chairman of Arnama VDC, Shiva Narayan Yadav, 65, his elder son Sanjaya Kumar, 23, and his two cousins Ram Prasad Yadav, 55, and Bijaya Kumar Yadav, 35, all of them from Brahmapuri village of the VDC. Three of them died instantly while the other one breathed his last on the way to a hospital.

Shiva Narayan’s another son Umesh said his father, elder brother and uncles were blindfolded before leading them to a field where they were shot to death. "My brother died on the way to a hospital in Siraha," said Umesh.

Police recovered all the dead bodies on early Sunday. A team of security forces, including the Siraha Chief District Officer had rushed to the site after receiving information about the murder.

CDO Tikaram Sharma said that a dozen of suspected people were taken into police custody for investigation. The bodies were handed over to the bereaved family members for the last rites after carrying out the post-mortems in Siraha hospital.

Meanwhile, issuing a press statement in Kathmandu today, the Ministry said that one rebel each was killed in Bansbari of Sindhupalchowk and Loharpani of Dang districts on Saturday. The Ministry claimed that the slain rebels were involved in ambushing security forces in the past. The forces also recovered firearms and explosive materials from the sites. Likewise, the security forces confiscated a large amount of explosives from Gohere area of Gorkha district.

In another incident in Dhangadhi, office equipment – a set of TV, computer, photocopy machine, VCD, and a motorbike and bicycle -were reduced to a cinder after a powerful bomb went off in the office of the Dhangadhi Municipality on early Sunday. Police suspect that the rebels were responsible for the blast. Fire fighters were called to put out the fire.

The Ministry said that the forces reconstructed a bridge at Kundigaon in Kailali for vehicular movement. Five Maoists in Rolpa district surrendered to the security forces on Saturday, the statement added.

Youths support parties to check killing, violence

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KATHMANDU, April 14:Nepal Tarun Dal (NAD), Democratic National Youth Association (DNYA), National Democratic Youth Organisation (NDYO), Nepal Youth Forum (NYF), All-Nepal Janabadi Youth League (ANJYL) and All-Nepal Youth Association (ANYA) have, in a joint statement, supported the the programme to be launched by the seven political parties on the basis of consensus to check killing, violence and destructive activities forced on the Nepali people.

The associations and organisations affiliated with various political parties have expressed their determination to safeguard the democratic achievements of the popular movement of 2046 BS.

Calling on the party concerned to immediately stop violent activities like killing people and destroying infrastructures, the joint statement says that if the party concerned does not stop such activities it will be responsible for the grave situation arising from it.

The CPN-Maoist is involved in killing and destroying basic development infrastructures daily, the joint statement says, adding that it is being felt that a plot is being hatched to curtail the rights attained through the popular movement by taking advantage of the present situation.

All the institutions representing the Nepalese youths dedicated to change wish to safeguard the country from such a grave situation, the joint statement adds.

The youth associations and organisations hope that the new year-2059 will inspire all the countrymen to unite to safeguard democratic rights and encounter killing and violent activities.

The joint statement was signed by Balkrishna Khand of NTD, Gokarna Raj Bista of DNYA, Pradip Udaya of DNYO, Bikash Tiwari of NYF, Madhav Koirala of ANJYL and Bidur Malla of ANYA.

VDCs in Lalitpur to obtain municipality status soon

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LALITPUR, April 14:Half a dozen emerging village development committees of Lalitpur district are probably well on the way to being recognised as municipalities very soon.

VDCs of Bungamati, Saibu, Khokana, Chapagaun, Jharuwarasi, Thecho, Lubhu, Imadol, Siddhipur, Tikathali and some others are waiting for a decision from the Ministry of Local Development to turn the whole area into three or four municipalities.

Chairman of Chapagaon VDC Char Sundar Maharjan said that his VDC including others are proceeding through formal channels of requesting the government to grant them the status of a municipality.

"We have requested this many times. As the government has also made a policy to convert VDCs into municipalities, we have requested Lalitpur District Development Committee (DDC) to term our VDCs as municipalities. The request had been forwarded to the municipality a couple of weeks ago and we are waiting for a favourable reply," he said.

He said that Chapagaun is the most densely populated VDC among 41 in Lalitpur and they all have infrastructures that meet with the Local Self-governance Act of 1999 B.S. which allows the VDCs to become a municipality.

"It is the demand of 15,000 residents and we are quite hopeful that the decision will be positive. This will play the role of a catalyst to make them work harder in future."

An urban atmosphere has expanded to neighbouring villages, new and heavy constructions are taking place, and VDC offices don’t have the authority to stop such construction that might hamper the VDC’s plans. Maharjan added that after the VDCs obtain the status of municipalities, such baseless works would be stopped.

Kapil Thapa, the chairman of Charuwabasi VDC, a comparatively backward settlement, has also decided to join the hands with surrounding VDCs to make the whole area a municipality. "The decision would make the VDCs independent and it would also be easy to develop the infrastructure for a locality on its own."

Chairman of Lalitpur District Development Committee (DDC) Madhav Poudel said he will support the VDC chairman in his attempt to obtain a municipality status from his side.

"The DDC Board meeting had passed a proposal to help the VDC’s demand for a municipality status last month. We have also corresponded to the MLD too."

He further added that the VDCs need to be turned into municipalities as they have more infrastructure and physical abilities to be more independent than many of the municipalities situated in remote districts.

Joint secretary at the MLD, Surya Sharan Regmi said that the demands for making several municipalities were in the process of technical investigation.

"We have a technical team to investigate whether those VDCs have capacities to develop the area into municipalities, according to the Local Self-governance Act of 1999 BS. The issue is under discussion now," said Regmi.

He added that it has been the government’s aim to reduce the number of VDCs and establish more municipalities in the country. "Demands for making municipalities are indeed a positive step in the process of development and decentralisation."

"This will make the municipalities more active, able and provide opportunities for higher-level decision making. This will also reduce the number of VDC chairmen in the national context," he said.

However, he added that the process, though, would take a longer time as they have to find out whether the VDCs are able to generate income or whether the government has enough sources to provide them or not.