Ilam, October 26:

Policemen, who were compelled to quit their jobs because of Maoist threats during the decade-long insurgency, have demanded the government to reinstate them to their respective

posts.

“The CPN-Maoist forced us to quit the job assuring that they would do something for us after they reached the power. Now the time has come. We should be reinstated to our posts as promised,” Bhim Kumar Shrestha of Barbote VDC-1 told this daily today.

Shrestha resigned from his job in 2004 after the Maoist cadres took him into detention for four days, when he had come to visit his home from Udaypur. He had joined the police service 13 years ago.

Head constable Gopal Sinjali of Godak VDC was forced to quit his job in 2004, a year before he would have got retirement from the service. “I had come from Terhathum district when my daughter fell ill. The Maoists pressurised me to quit, saying that they would harm my family members if I declined. I had no option but to quit,” he added. Bal Bahadur Bote of Barbote VDC said he was compelled to leave his job in 2000. Bote has been teaching in a local school ever since.

The ex-policemen have also formed a committee to put forth their demands with the government in a managed way.

Hem Kumar Shrestha, president of the committee, said they decided to put forth their demands in an organised way after they didn’t see any provisions for the ex-policemen in the budget for the fiscal year 2065/66. “We were expecting that the budget would address some of our demands. But the budget had no provision for us,” he added.

He said that the committee had sent application to Prime Minister’s Office and Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction via the district committee of CPN-Maoist, requesting the government to reinstate them to their previous posts.

The committee, however, does not have the exact number of policemen who were forced to quit during the insurgency. “We are still collecting the data,” the committee said.