KATHMANDU, SEPTEMBER 13

Ganga Maya Adhikari has been shifted to the National Trauma Centre after a citizens’ appeal following the government decision to designate the main building of Bir Hospital as a dedicated COVID-19 health facility.

Human rights activist and Coordinator of Accountability Watch Committee Charan Prasai said Ganga Maya, who has staged hunger strikes on several occasions demanding action against her son’s murderers, was relocated to the trauma centre along with other patients being treated in the main hospital building.

A group of citizens, including Kedarnath Upadhyaya, Kalyan Shrestha, Daman Nath Dhungana and Kedar Bhakta Mathema, among others, had appealed to the government to be sensitive towards Ganga Maya’s safety and health. They had urged the government to shift Ganga Maya to another safe facility to ensure she did not contract the deadly virus. “It has come to our serious attention that satyagrahi Ganga Maya’s health is at high risk as she is still being kept at the hospital with high risk of contracting coronavirus from infected patients,” their appeal read.

Ganga Maya and her late husband Nanda Prasad Adhikari started a hunger strike as part of their Satyagraha since January 2013, demanding justice for the murder of Krishna Prasad Adhikari, their 16-yearold son, during the Maoist insurgency.

The couple demanded no amnesty be given to those involved in the murder and that the guilty be brought before a court of law.

However, on 22 September 2014, the 334th day of the hunger strike, Nanda Prasad died while on a fastonto-death.

The hunger strike was postponed on the 359th day when the government promised to fulfil its commitment to address Ganga Maya’s demand for justice and pledged to look after her throughout her life.

However, her demand for justice is yet to materialise and she has been staging fast-unto-death on many occasions on Bir Hospital premises, where the government has kept her.

“As Ganga Maya is being kept at the hospital, there is high chance that she might contract the virus sooner or later in such a setting and equally high possibility of greater risk to her life. Hence, we request the government and the hospital management to immediately transfer her to a safer place with adequate health facilities, as per her consent,” the citizens’ appeal further read.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on September 14, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.