Locals in the area remained terrified through out the consistent firing heard in the township. Vehicle glasses were smashed one after another, random people were attacked with empty bottles and many injured people were heard crying in pain at Souraha Chowk.
Police deployed in large numbers were aggressive against the demonstrators. They fired teargas canisters on a regular to disperse the crowd, with minimum success. The protesters pelted stones, bricks and empty bottles of beer and coke against the police and attacked them with bamboo poles, batons, machete and local-made weapons and whatever was available to them at the moment.
After some hours of continued clashes, 20-year-old student Kamal Chaudhary from Bachhauli-3 and another youth Bipin Chhettri of Shaktikhor-5 were killed by the police personnel. Many of other protestors sustained serious injuries and were rushed to hospitals.
Recalling the frightening moments that night, Ajay Thakur, who runs a hair-cutting salon at Sauraha chowk, said he passed the night sleepless laying down under his cot. Early next day, he left the place and took refuge at his relative’s house at Tandi area. “The firing was consistent,” he said.
Kamal Chaudhary was shot in his ribs. He was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance at about 2 a.m.. Another victim Bipin was not even in the protest line. He was an onlooker, with his friends at Sauraha chowk. A trainee at an automobile repairing garage, he was shot when police fired rounds of random shots. Bullets pierced through his kidney and backbone. He was rushed to Bharatpur hospital and later to TU Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu. He was declared dead at the Teaching Hospital on Friday morning.
Following the death of two locals, the irate protestors turned violent. They carried with them local-made sharp weapons spread across the area. Local authority enforced curfew order with effect from 10 a.m. on Friday. Agitated protestors defied the curfew and clashed with the police at Tandi bazaar and Sauraha areas. The clashes took a nasty turn amidst the prohibition. Police opened blank fires and few rounds of teargas canisters to disperse the crowd.
The protestors took the teargas canisters and threw back at the police. Kumar Budhathoki and Prakash KC of the Armed Police Force were hit back with the canisters. They were trapped by violent protestors who dragged them and took them inside a house. Then the protesters attacked the two policemen with machetes and other sharp weapons. Both the policemen were brutally attacked in their heads and throats. The protestors unlocked KC’s helmet, threw it away and attacked him with home-made swords. He then collapsed. Budhathoki was hacked to death with a machete and was dead on the spot.
KC struggled for his life. The unruly mob went toward the policemen and showed KC’s helmet to the police corp as an indication of their payback. Protestors said they killed policeman to take revenge the murder of two of their friends.
Then policemen, then more hostile, opened firings and moved ahead in search of their missing friends. The protestors dispersed and did not come face to face with the police. The police took away the body of Budhathoki while KC was still crying in pain. A part of Budhathoki’s skull remained inside the building where he was attacked until Saturday morning.
After the killing of their friends, policemen turned brutal towards many locals. They did not spare even the nursing mothers. Media personnel were threatened too.
The area turned into a battlefield. Gates, doors and window panes of many buildings and houses in Sauraha were seen broken. The locals did not understand why the place had turned into a violent front line. The police were like injured tiger, ready to pounce on anything that moved. It was quite an ardent task to move around unnoticed by the police and dodge the constant obstructions by the protestors, even inside villages and offroad tracks.
We are caught in between the mode of protest and indifference towards the demands, making it hard to decide what is right from wrong, However, the 24-hour reign of terror that comes in the dawn of demand for autonomy will always remain with us in our memory.
Related story
Azerbaijan to host COP-29
