Surkhet, December 30 :

Some 244 persons displaced from Dailekh and Jajarkot districts due to the decade-long Maoist insurgency have returned home.

These people from 46 households were given a rousing send-off by INSEC representatives at Birendranagar.

Speaking on the occasion, former minister Yam Lal Kandel urged all the displaced to return home as the situation had changed.

Kandel also asked the Maoists to take special measures to ensure that the displaced people felt safe to return home. CPN-Maoist Surkhet district in-charge Gambhir assured the people that his party will not perpetrate atrocities on the people and that they were free to return home.

Speakers including CPN-UML district secretary Nava Raj Raut, Nepali Congress district secretary Shyam Bharati, member of the Surkhet chapter of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists Moti Lal Poudel, INSEC regional office in-charge Bhola Mahat said the time had come for all displaced to be re-installed in their rightful place.

Displaced Dal Bahadur Khadka, 65, said he was happy to be able to finally return home, adding that he had to leave his native place because of the Maoists. Khadka said he was pleased to see the restoration of peace in the country. Jajarkot’s Jay Bahadur Singh said it was a matter of immense happiness for him to return home after a hiatus of eight years. “I was living like a refugee with my family in Chhinchu all these years. I am longing to go back home and till my fields again,” he said.

Hari Dutt Jaisi, 50, and his eight-member family were displaced after the Maoists accused his children of having joined the Nepal Army. He is going home, but there is a nagging fear at the back of his mind that the Maoists will do him some mischief.