Compensate families of Bardiya shootings

It is quite unfortunate that the families of the three Dalit women shot dead by army personnel in Bardiya National Park (BNP) are yet to receive crematory expenses even though a month has passed since the incident took place. Though the local authorities had provided 20,000 rupees after the families refused to accept the dead bodies even 10 days after the shootings, they are yet to get an additional 55,000 rupees as promised by the authorities.



Devisara BK (35), Chandrakala BK (12) and Amrita BK (29) were shot dead by the army inside BNP on March 10. Following the killings, the Nepal Army (NA) defended the security personnel charging the three women of being poachers. They even claimed that the women were armed and that the army had shot them in self-defense. However, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) brushed aside the army’s claim and concluded that they were just locals who had entered the park to collect bark from kaulo trees. In what came as a relief to the army though, the national human rights watchdog ruled out the suspicion of many locals that the women were raped by the army personnel before being shot.



With whatever has come out in the open, it is extremely difficult to establish as to what exactly had happened on that fateful night. The army’s refusal to cooperate with members of a nine-member subcommittee formed by the Parliamentary Committee on Women, Children and Social Welfare gives us room to be skeptical about their take on the incident. Hence, we need a thorough probe into the matter. Similarly, the committee’s finding that the army had tried to hide facts and tampered with evidence is also quite worrisome.



It may well be possible that the fatal shootings could have resulted from an unfortunate mistake on the part of the army but the burden of proving that lies on them. That is something they could have done by lending full cooperation to the probe team, which they did not do unfortunately. Such high-handedness on their part is the reason why they are often dragged into controversies. If the army is really not guilty, we do not see any reason for it to shy away from bringing out the facts surrounding the incident in the open. While we ask NA to do that, we also request the concerned authorities to release the promised compensation to the families without any further delay. In the midst of all the debate about the shootings, we must not forget that the women who lost their lives hailed from an extremely backward community and any small help means a world to them.

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