Tika R Pradhan

Bhaktapur, July 23:

Cases of theft and other crimes have increased in Bhaktapur after the Bhaktapur Municipality decided to stop deploying people for night security some 15 months ago. The move poses a serious threat to the arts and artefacts of cultural and archaeological importance that lie scattered across Bhaktapur. The municipality, some four years ago, had deployed 25 people, under the Cultural Security Unit (CSU), to conduct night patrolling but it stopped functioning after joint security forces started patrolling the city after declaration of the state of Emergency

on February 1. “There has been significant rise in criminal activities after the municipality stopped night patrolling,” said Raju Awal, chief of the then CSU. The CSU was dissolved and the people in the unit were transferred at various other sections of the municipality, said Awal, who is now working at the Social Welfare and Sanitation Section.

Many of members from the dissolved CSU are deployed to control street hawkers and beggars

from harassing tourists. “No idol was stolen from the Bhaktapur city for the two-and-a-half years when we conducted night patrolling,” Awal said. According to Prem Suwal, former mayor of the municipality, the Cultural Security Unit was formed to control the stealing of precious idols and other important cultural heritages of the city. “The municipality deployed its own patrolling unit because the police alone could not save the heritages,” he said.

DSP Raju Manandhar at the Bhaktapur District Police office said he was not aware of the CSU.

Head of the Social Welfare and Sanitation Section, Moti Bhakta Shrestha, said the CSU had done a good job for the municipality. “It was a very risky job and many times the security unit members encountered robbers.” Shrestha urged the bodies concerned to begin night vigilance

at a time when priceless idols are being stolen.