Kathmandu, January 9

Ganga Maya Adhikari, who is on her journey to internationalise the murder of her son Krishna Prasad Adhikari, today met UN Resident Coordinator Valerie Julliand at UN House, Pulchowk and sought the international community’s help to ensure her justice.

Krishna Prasad was kidnapped and killed by the then Maoist rebels in Chitwan in June, 2004 at the height of Maoist insurgency. Ganga Maya was accompanied by her six lawyers. “Ganga Maya told UN Resident Coordinator Julliand that she was compelled to knock the doors of the United Nations as the state had failed or did not want to deliver her justice. She wanted Julluiand to help internationalise the case and arrest the culprit(s) whereever they were,” lawyer Ashik Ram Karki told THT.

Gangya Maya also said that her fast-unto-death protests that she staged time and again could not convince the government to arrest and prosecute the murderer(s) of her son. “I don’t want to die in hunger strike like my husband (Nanda Prasad Adhikari). All I want is action against the guilty in my lifetime,” the lawyer quoted Ganga Maya. In response, Julliand pledged to extend all possible support to Ganga Maya from her place.

Ganga Maya has come to a conclusion that the state is unwilling and unable to deliver justice in her son’s murder case. Now, she wants to remind the responsibility of each member of humankind as well as the international community to act for justice.

She has already announced her wish to visit the United Kingdom, where her son’s murder-accused Rudra Prasad Acharya is hiding, and also to the UN Headquarters, from where she could access various members of international community. She has repeatedly said that either she would resume her full-fledged fast-onto-death hunger strike or embark on the road to internationalise her fight for justice. She wants reach out to the international community to tell the story of her son’s murder and reluctance expressed by the state to send the criminals behind bars.

Krishna Prasad’s parents waited for almost seven years to bring the culprits to justice. But after the state did not take initiatives to arrest the murderers, they began their hunger strike in January 2013.

The strike ended after 47 days following the government’s commitment to ensure justice. But after the main accused, Chhabilal Poudel, was released on bail, the Adhikari couple resumed their hunger strike. As the hunger strike entered the 334th day, Ganga Maya’s husband breathed his last. His body has been lying unclaimed at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital since his death on 22 September 2014.

After her husband’s death, Ganga Maya staged fast-unto-death twice. She ended her last hunger strike in July 2018 after the government expressed commitment to fulfil all her demands. But on September 10, the Chitwan District Court acquitted 12 people accused of having a hand in the murder of Ganga Maya’s son.