Barbaric Attacks

WITHIN days after the lifting of the State of Emergency in the country, a spate of attacks have been carried out by the Maoist terrorists in different parts of the country, including in Kathmandu. Civilians and security personnel have been killed in separate attacks and property worth millions of rupees were destroyed. But the most barbaric attack came on Saturday night, when Maoist terrorists armed with sophisticated weapons, attacked a police post in Sindhuli district and almost fifty police personnel, including one inspector and several junior officers were brutally murdered. According to some survivors, many of the policemen were killed in cold blood by the terrorists. Coming as it did just a day before the festival of Teej, when some fast for many hours praying for the long life of their husbands, the brutal attack came as more of a shock. Hot on the heels of this shocking news from Sindhuli, reports have been trickling down from Arghakhanchi in mid-Western Nepal that many security personnel and others have been killed in another barbaric carnage perpetrated by the terrorists there. The whole nation has been shocked by this senseless murdering of innocent people and men doing their duty for their country.Quite rightly, political parties and all others who want to see peace and development in the country have roundly condemned the terrorist attacks. The Government has also quickly swung into action and pressed reinforcement, consisting of the Royal Nepalese Army, Armed Police Force and the Civilian Police to the affected areas and according to a Home Ministry statement, intensive search operations are on to nab the terrorists. At a time when many sections of the society were making efforts to give a political outlet to the terrorist problem, though the government was steadfast in its policy to deal firmly with the Maoist terrorists, the present attacks will prove a huge setback for those voices that were mooting to bring the Maoists into the political mainstream through dialogue. Now the government has no alternative than to take sterner steps against the terrorists. When the whole world is showing solidarity to fight terrorist activities, within one's borders and at an international level as well, the Maoists are showing suicidal symptoms by carrying out such barbaric attacks. The government, all political forces and the people must stand united against such terrorists and put an end to their heinous activities.

Cull The Pachyderms

RURAL folks of Bara, Parsa and Rautahat districts, are reported to be living in fear from wild elephants straying out from the Royal Chitwan National Park and the Parsa Wildlife Preserve and destroying their crops and properties. This is not the very first time that rural folks living in the Terai region have been terrorised by wild elephants. And if the concerned park authorities do not come with permanent solutions to protect the people living adjacent to these two wildlife sanctuaries, it does not need much imagination on the part of all that these pachyderms will continue to stray out from their preserves. And, in the process, destroy the rural folks' means of livelihood, if not their sustenance. Worse still, it could even goad these marauding pachyderms' victims to retaliate, thereby jeopardizing the very aim of setting aside wildlife preserves, parks and sanctuaries. Herein, to protect the nation's wildlife-which includes the wild elephants-for posterity. For, along with the widespread decimation of the forests-the natural habitats of the wildlife-by humans over these centuries to convert them into farmlands, the population of the nation's wildlife has not only registered a decline but some of the animal species are said to be on the extinction.

Hence, if the nation's remaining wild elephants are to be preserved and, more importantly, bequeathed to whole humankind, then it behooves upon the concerned authorities to devise strategies whereby both the humans and these wild pachyderms survive in a "win-win" situation This, needless to mention, can only be possible when the concerned authorities come up with practical-and realistic-solutions. Asking the farmers to vacate their lands to accommodate these wild elephants is out of question since it could lead to adverse socio-economic repercussions. Similarly, hedging in these wild elephants-which do not respect man-made boundaries-within a limited area could leave them wide open to injuries sustained while breaching the assorted fences. However, it is well known to all by now that wild animals, including elephants, invariably stray out from their protected preserves for two main reasons. One, when their constricted habitats are unable to meet their foraging needs. Secondly, when there are just too many elephants competing for limited supplies of forage within their preserves. As such, in the given situation, an ideal solution could be to cull these wild pachyderms' populations on a selective basis.