Pardafas Reporter
Activist Ruby Khan, who had been sitting in afast-unto-death hunger strike for the past several days today broke the strikeafter an agreement was reached between the activists and the Ministry of HomeAffairs.
Ruby and her friends representing Mahila AdhikarManch, had been staging different kinds of demonstration and protest againstthe abduction and killing of Nirmala Kurmi and NakunniDhobi of Banke district.
The activists and government met an agreement onTuesday night which was negotiated by civil society activists including Mohana Aansari. They had been demanding implementation of the investigation report ofthe investigation committee formed by the government into the deaths and disappearances of Nankunni Dhobi and Nirmala Kurmi and a separate independent investigation by the special designated team of the police.
As per the agreement the criminal case related to Kurmi and Dhobi will be now investigated by the Central Investigation Bureau(CIB) of Nepal Police and thus the agitating activists have broken their hungerstrike. Despite the agreement, the activists have expressed that influential leaders of the ruling party in the district and the involvement of a network of land brokers in the incident, could hinder the investigation process.
The agreement was made after hours of rigors talk yesterday night at the MoHA which was participated by Home Joint-Secretary Mukunda Prasad Niraula, Pradip Kumar Koirala, and Bhishma Kumar Bhusal from the government side and Ruby Khan was joined by members of civil society Dr.Govinda KC, human right activist Mohana Ansari and advocate Om Prakash Aryal from the agitators.
These civil society members had also earlier met Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba last week and requested him to take promptaction in the Nakunni and Nirmala case.
What is the Nakunni and Nirmala case ?
The main reason of the hyped issue of Nakunni andNirmala is about their death under two different mysterious circumstances in Nepalgunj of Banke district last year.
Nukunni of Newaji village in Banke was found deadon 20 July, 2020. Her body was found hanging inside her house, and later foundthat her body had bruises all over her body.
Relatives have claimed that shewas killed and was suffering from domestic violence for a long time. However, thepolice had hurriedly concluded the case saying it was a suicide.
The parents of Nakunni had accused the relatives of Nakunni of killing her in a bid to forciblyget her property in their names.
Similarly, Nirmala Kurmi of Paraspur village inBanke had gone missing since December last year. At that time, the relativeslodged a complaint with the police but showed little interest in finding Nirmala. Aftera few days, his relatives got the news of her death from the police.
Relatives claim that Kurmi, a single woman, was abductedand killed by the land mafias and her relatives who tried to illegally gettheir property.
What do the police say?
Police said that a case has been filed in the courtthrough the district government attorney office after investigating theincident in Nakunni case.
Banke Police Chief SP Shyam Krishna Adhikari saidthat her husband and brother-in-law are currently in jail for the incident.But no one has been arrested so far in Nirmala Kurmi’scase. "We have not found enough evidence to arrest anyone in connectionwith Kurmi's murder," he told pardafas.
Complaints have been lodgedagainst seven people, including former MP and Congress leader Badshah Kurmi inthis case. But he was released by the police after asking a few questions to him.
