Son sees Hindu extremists’ hand, laments govt inaction

Pokhara, January 25:

Expressing his dissatisfaction over the inaction of the government to take a concrete step to trace the murderer of late Pandit Narayan Prasad Pokharel, his son Pandit Dinbandhu Pandit today said his father was murdered by Hindu extremists close to royal palace.

Pandit Pokharel, who is in Pokhara to participate in a religious sermon, said this while speaking to the Press today. Saying that Maoist central leadership was not involved in the murder, Pokharel said the royalist Hindu extremists used lower level Maoist cadres for the purpose.

Late Pandit Pokharel was murdered on April 6, 2005 at Ramapur VDC of Rupandehi district.

Stating that Maoist central leaders had told him that they had no reason to kill Pandit Pokharel, Dinbandhu said Hindu extremists killed him due to jealousy after his campaign of collecting donation for development activities gained nationwide popularity.

Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala and CPN-UML General Secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal had assured to take steps to find Pokharel’s murderer and take necessary action as soon as democracy was restored in the nation, Pandit Dinbandhu said.

“No initiatives, whatsoever, have been taken in this regard even after 10 months have passed since the restoration of democracy in the nation,” he said.

On declaring Nepal as a secular state, Pundit Pokharel said he didn’t have any objections regarding the declaration but he said he was not satisfied by the process of such declaration.

He said a declaration on that regard should have been done through constituent assembly or referendum than by the 205 Members of the Parliament.

Late Pandit Narayan Prasad Pokharel had helped collect donation amounting to more than Rs 2.5 million for different development activities during more than 1100 religious sermons.

Stranger than fiction

• Pundit Narayan Prasad Pokharel was murdered on April 6, 2005 at Ramapur VDC of Rupandehi

• He had helped collect donation of more than Rs 2.5billion through over 1100 religious sermons

• PM Girija Prasad Koirala and UML general secretary had promised to take action to punish the culprits

• Maoist leadership have clarified that they did not have any reason to murder Pundit Pokharel

• Nothing has been done yet to trace the culprits

• His son says Hindu extremists used low-ranking Maoist cadres to kill his father