NATIONAL 9 (Spotlight Weelky)]

Welcome Respite

The people of Bara district, are enjoying a respite from an old scourage: criminal activities

By AKSHAY SHARMA in BARA

As the state of emergency enters its third month, people are busy assessing its meaning and long-term impact. The security forces are making significant advances against the Maoist insurgents, while politicians are pressing their plea for national consensus and devising their strategies as the emergency proclamation comes up for ratification in parliament. The people of Bara district, meanwhile, are enjoying a respite from an old scourge: criminal activities.

Bara is known for the bandits and criminals that operate through the porous border with the Indian state of Bihar. "It is a relief that these boys have pitched in to fight the criminals," Village District Committee Chairman Bhagwan Poudel told SPOTLIGHT, pointing to the armed soldiers in two army vehicles that passed by.

People in Terai : Feeling safe

The comparison between criminal gangs and terrorist groups is apt, experts say, because the irregulars often hire criminals to do their dirty work. Moreover, sometimes they turn to petty or organized crime themselves. Criminals are supposedly hired to drop weapons and explosives or to carry out extreme act of violence, tasks a typical irregular may be unable to perform.

"I had friends who used to say that if they didn't pass the SLC examination they would go to Bhim Shakhuwa in the middle of the Char Kose Jhadhi (the famed jungle strip in the Terai) to become robbers," says Purshottam Poudel, a resident of Hanumangunj.

"Buses travelling to the east were often looted. There used to be heavy smuggling of timber from the jungles. People were kidnapped. I remember an incident where bandits stripped a couple of people of all their possessions, except their under garments. These things have come to a complete halt after the emergency was declared," he adds.

In the first few days after the Maoists pulled out of peace talks by attacking the Royal Nepalese Army for the first time, the country was trying to make sense of the shift in rebel strategy. Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, who had come to office on a pledge to resolve the insurgency through dialogue, was stunned by the suddenness of the assault. The country had little choice but to impose a state of emergency and deploy the military against the rebels.

As the weeks wore on, other questions were being asked. "How could the government, leaders and policy makers have been fooled by the Maoists when the rebels sent low-ranking officials to negotiate with the government on matters of such national consequence?" an analyst asks.

The country is now discussing the pros and cons of the emergency. "The notion that the emergency could lead to the militarization of the country is false," former deputy prime minister Ram Chandra Poudel told a gathering organized by the Nepali Congress in Nepalgunj this week. "The emergency has been promulgated so that the public and the security forces can work in harmony to save democracy," he added.

UML general secretary and leader of the opposition Madhav Kumar Nepal had quite the opposite view when he addressed a gathering in Dhangadi the same day. "We are aware that the emergency could exceed its limits, threatening the people's rights," he said.

The conversation in Bara has a more local focus. "I remember a kidnapping where the criminals had demanded a sum of rupees to be delivered at Ghodhashan (Bihar), but the boy had managed to escape," said VDC chairman Poudel. "He told us horrific tales of the beatings he got from the kidnappers. The internal security situation has proven to be good to us." Such sighs of relief are commonly heard across the district.