Nepal

Kathmandu, July 29

Nepali Congress Lawmaker Binda Devi Ale Rana in the parliamentary Delegated Management and Government Assurance Committee today questioned the governmentability to find the culprit(s) of Nirmala Pantarape and murder.

&How will people trust the government that cannot make any headway into 13-year-old Nirmala Pantarape and murder case in the last one year?,& she asked Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa.

At the meeting, Rana asked the minister what new strategies would be adopted to investigate the case now.

At the beginning of the meeting, Chair of the panel Ram Narayan Bidari asked nine questions to Home Minister Thapa. The questions asked were related to various issues, including the Nirmala rape and murder case, attack on Nepal Communist Party (NCP) lawmaker Niru Devi Pal, natural disaster management, murder of former ambassador Kesab Jha and murder of Sangin GC, among others.

Nirmala was raped and murdered on July 26 last year in Kanchanpur. Pal was attacked by unknown people in August last year in Kathmandu. Jha and 22-year old GC were murdered in August last year in Kathmandu. However, Home Minister Thapa failed to give concrete answers to the questions put forth by lawmakers.

In Nirmalacase, he said the government had formed many committees to investigate the case and also sent different teams from the Central Bureau of Investigation, but failed to find the culprit(s). &The government is trying to investigate the case from every angle,& he said. Thapa also handed over a document prepared by investigation teams to the committee stating that the documentcontent was sensitive and could not to be shared with the public. &The document itself speaks about progress made by teams involved in the investigation so far,& Thapa added. Another lawmaker Chandra Bahadur Khadka asked why police had released Dilip Singh Bista even after collecting a few evidences against him.

Answering the question, Minister Thapa said Bista was released after his DNA test did not match with the DNA profile found in Nirmalavaginal swab.

In reply to the questions related to other cases, he simply said investigation was under way.

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Kathmandu, July 29

Lawmakers representing the Nepali Congress and the Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal stalled proceedings in the House of Representatives today once again over non-formation of a parliamentary committee to probe two alleged cases of extra-judicial execution in Sarlahi district.

Sarlahi district in-charge of the Netra Bikram Chand led-group Kumar Paudel was killed in an alleged encounter with police on June 20 and Saroj Narayan Singh of Ishwarpur Municipality was killed during police firing in a protest on the East-West Highway on June 30.

As soon as House proceedings began today, opposition lawmakers rose from their chairs to stall House proceedings, but Speaker Krishna Bahadur Mahara ignored their protest and continued House proceedings, following which NC and RJP-N lawmakers swarmed the HoR well.

The protesting lawmakers& chanted slogans in the House for almost 45 minutes demanding formation of a parliamentary probe committee. They also demanded that the Girish Chandra Lal Commission report on killings during the Madhes movement of 2015-16 be made public.

The opposition lawmakers shouted slogans such as ‘Stop violation of human rights,& and ‘Maintain supremacy of the Parliament.&

Speaker Mahara repeatedly told opposition lawmakers that only discussion in the House on issues concerning the public could help maintain parliamentary supremacy and if lawmakers were really concerned about supremacy of the Parliament, then they should end their obstruction and allow debate in the House. But the NC and RJP-N lawmakers continued sloganeering in the House ignoring the speakercall to end the House obstruction.

Speaker Mahara even told opposition lawmakers that they were violating other lawmakers& rights by obstructing House proceedings. &Many other lawmakers who want to raise various issues concerning the public have not been able to do so because of your protests. Are you not violating their rights?& Speaker Mahara asked.

RJP-N lawmaker Laxman Lal Karna told THT that the government was not willing to hold dialogue with opposition parties to end House obstruction. This showed the government was not acting in a responsible manner in the House, he added.

&There is strong evidence to prove that the two killings in Sarlahi district were cases of extra-judicial killing. Thatwhy the government does not want to form the Parliamentary Probe Committee,& he said. Karna also said the government had pledged to publish the Lal Commissionreport, but it had not done so yet.

He said Speaker Mahara was not playing any role to end the House obstruction. &Mahara only supports the government,& he added.

The NC and RJP-N, which have been obstructing House proceedings since July 9, had ended their obstruction to discuss their motion of urgent public importance regarding floods and landslides.

The speakerPress Advisor Dilli Malla said Speaker Mahara had been talking to leaders of the ruling and opposition parties for the last two days and he would continue to do so tomorrow to encourage both sides to find a negotiated settlement to the ongoing House impasse.

Malla also said the speaker held informal meeting with the chief whips of the ruling and opposition parties today, but both sides stuck to their guns.

• House stalled for second day over Sarlahi killings
• Panel formed to probe death in Sarlahi firing

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Kathmandu, July 29

The new penal code has prohibited child marriage. It has also increased the marriageable age to 20 years. Yet, children below the permissible age continue to be married off.

Data with Nepal police showed there were 15 cases of child marriage in fiscal 2013-14 followed by 23 in fiscal 2014-15, 20 in 2015-16, 26 in 2016-17 and 59 in 2017-18. Spokesperson for the Office of the Attorney General Sanjeeb Raj Regmi said awareness programmes should be launched in areas where incidents of child marriage were high as laws alone could not prevent child marriage.

&In some areas, it is customary to marry off children early or before boys and girls attain 20 years of age,& Regmi said, adding that the government should sensitise people about the need to raise the marriageable age of their offspring to 20 years. &The message that permissible age for marriage ensures the well-being of both mothers and newborn babies should be communicated well in society. Stakeholders also need to make the public aware that those practising child marriage, particularly the guardians, would be punished by law,& he added.

Regional Manager of Centre for Reproductive Rights Purna Shrestha said child marriage was a crime and a violation of human rights. She said child marriage had led to multiple health complications in mothers, including unwanted pregnancy and uterine prolapse. &Boys and girls who get married before permissible age drop out of school and they also become victims of psychological, physical and sexual violence,& she said.

She said it was important to treat child marriage as a crime and not a cultural practice. &There are people who still treat child marriage as a cultural practice. This poses obstacle in rooting out the social evil of child marriage,& Shrestha added.

Sustainable Development Goals also envisage abolition of child marriage by 2030.

Shrestha said the new penal code was better than the previous general code as it made child marriage void, but anti-dowry laws also needed to be implemented. &There are communities that tend to marry off their daughters at an early age because they think doing so would spare them from the burden of dowry in future,& she argued.

&In our society, people look down on girls whose marriages have been nullified by the law or who have been abandoned by their spouses,& she said.

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Kathmandu, July 29

Despite the governmentfree provision of rabies vaccination, many people lose their lives each year due to the disease.

According to the data provided by Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital, 19 cases of rabies were diagnosed in the hospital in the fiscal 2018-19.

The number of patients taking rabies vaccines has also been rising in the hospital for the last few years. Patients visit the hospital to take rabies vaccination after being bitten by dog, monkey, cat, cattle and rodents.

According to Epidemiology and Disease Control Division, it is estimated that the annual incidence of human rabies is around one hundred across the country.

Many human rabies cases are not admitted, or patients don&t seek medical advice. The number of animal bite cases has fluctuated over the past few years. It is estimated that around 50,000 people seek post-exposure prophylaxis in Nepal.

According to World Health Organisation, dogs are the main cause of human rabies deaths, contributing up to 99 per cent of all the rabies transmissions to humans. People are usually infected following a deep bite or scratch from an animal inflicted by rabies. Transmission can also occur when the infectious material & usually saliva & comes into direct contact with human mucosa or fresh skin wounds.

Anup Bastola, consultant tropical medicine physician at STIDH, said people are ignorant and unaware about rabies. Many people come to the hospital only after they develop symptoms of rabies. They visit the hospitals with signs of hyperactivity, excitable behaviour, hydrophobia (fear of water) and sometimes aerophobia (fear of drafts or of fresh air).

Despite the animalbite, many patients usually ignore post-bite vaccination. There is lack of education about viral infection. Thatwhy people are losing their lives to the preventable disease, said the doctor.

After the dog bites, people should take anti-rabies vaccination as soon as possible so that the vaccine can become more effective. The vaccine is given to neutralise the virus, said Bastola.

Stakeholders working to prevent rabies infection say that education on dog behaviour and bite prevention is necessary among children and adults.

Agriculture and Livestock Departmentrecords reveal that there are 82,000 stray dogs in the capital. Of them, over 7,840 dogs have been vaccinated.

Though we are working to help prevent rabies by vaccinating and sterilising dogs, the campaign should be extended across the country. Until and unless all the concerned local bodies and the government work effectively, it will be difficult to eliminate rabies.

Rabies prevention should be in the priority list of the government, said Hari Bahadur Bhandari, Chief of Agriculture and Livestock Department, Kathmandu metropolis.

WHO has set a target to eliminate dog-transmitted rabies by 2030. WHO, the World Organisation for Animal Health, Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), and the Global Alliance for Rabies Control (GARC) have established a global ‘United Against Rabies& collaboration to provide a common strategy to achieve ‘zero human rabies deaths by 2030.&

&Rabies elimination is possible, but itchallenging,& said Bastola. People should be aware of dog bite and should immediately take vaccines after dog bite. The local bodies and health sectors should work in tandem to lessen the number of dog bites.

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