Police's capabilities will be questioned if attackers are not arrested: PM

POKHARA, June 24: Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal tried to shirk from the case of attack against Republica´s correspondent Khilanath Dhakal by blaming the police for failing to arrest the assailant.



He directed the police to immediately arrest Parshuram Basnet, one of the accused in the case, and warned that failure to do so would raise serious questions about their capability.[break]



Inability to arrest Basnet three weeks after the attack on Dhakal puts Nepal police force, which has arrested even big criminals, in bad light, he said on Friday at the District Development Committee´s office in Pokhara. Repeating the statements made in the past, Prime Minister Khanal said that regardless of who the accused was, he must be brought to book.



He clarified that neither the government nor his party has provided any protection to Basnet. Noting that two accused involved in the incident have already been arrested, he expressed faith that the Morang Police will be able to bring the mastermind behind the attack to justice soon. PM Khanal said his party, CPN-UML, deplored attacks against journalists and urged that such incidents should not be given a political twist in order to discredit a political party.



PM´s speech boycotted



Journalists in Pokhara boycotted the speech of PM Khanal and other minister´s on Friday citing the failure to arrest the attackers of journalist Dhakal. PM Khanal, Local Development Minister Urmila Aryal and State Minister for Physical Planning and Works Devi Khadka were in Pokhara to participate in a program organized to declare Kaski as the first open defecation free zone in Nepal. The journalists walked out of the program hall chanting “punish the attacker´s of journalists” immediately after the ministers started to speak.



“Journalists are being attacked almost every day yet the government has not been able to penalize the guilty,” said Krishna Basnet, a senior journalist. He also accused the government of turning a blind eye towards the injustices. They demanded that the government punish the accused as soon as possible and respect press freedom.



The journalists also presented a memo to the PM before the program began that stated that failure to punish the culprits involved in the series of attacks against journalists was encouraging impunity.

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