Itahari, December 17:

Around 150 families displaced from Prakashpur VDC of Sunsari due to the atrocities of Madhesi Mukti Tigers today categorically refused to return to their village, saying that they did not want their daughters raped in broad daylight.

“How can we go back to a place where the honour of our women and daughters is not safe? CDO saheb, please do not force us to return,” they pleaded at a programme in Inaruwa. “Strangle us but we will not go back there.”

For the last two months, the families have been displaced from the island, named Sri Lanka for the similarity of its shape to the country, surrounded by the Koshi River after getting threats from the cadres of the Madhesi Mukti Tigers. They have been living in Jabdi and Bayerban areas of Sunsari district ever since. Despite guarantees of security by the Nepal Army, the police, human rights organisations and the administration, they have refused to return to the village.

Dambar Kumari, a displaced person, said, “They took away our livestock and crops, and they demanded money at gunpoint thrice.” She said that she would not return there under any circumstance.

Bishnu Kumari Sherpa said they had to flee like mad when the turbaned MMT cadres descended on their village. “It was a mayhem. I fled somewhere, my children elsewhere,” she said Pramila Sherpa said, “We are forced to spend the nights under the sky in this winter. Straw is our bed, and we don’t have enough clothes to beat the chill.” She added that the elderly and children among the displaced have contracted pneumonia. “The children’s studies have been severed. Contaminated water and lack of proper food has made many of us ill,” she added. Ram Bahadur Tamang said, “Even in the time of the Maoist insurgency, things were not so bad. MMT people order us to take up guns and join their agitation.”

Chief district officer Prem Narayan Sharma said he was committed to enable the displaced people to return home. “We plan to help them return home within a week,” he added. Sharma said that the reluctance of the displaced people to return home was creating problems, adding that action would be taken against MMT cadres troubling these people.