• NIRMALA, NAKUNNI MURDERS
KATHMANDU, JANUARY 05
Human rights activist Ruby Khan, who had been on a fast-unto-death hunger strike for the past several days in Kathmandu, officially broke the strike on Wednesday morning after reaching a fourpoint agreement with the government.
Ruby and her friends representing Mahila Adhikar Manch had been staging demonstration against the abduction and killing of Nirmala Kurmi and Nakunni Dhobi of Banke district.
Human rights activist Ruby Khan, who had been on a fastunto-death hunger strike for the past several days in Kathmandu, officially broke the strike this morning after reaching a four-point agreement with the government.
Ruby and her friends representing Mahila Adhikar Manch, had been staging demonstration against the abduction and killing of Nirmala Kurmi and Nakunni Dhobi of Banke district.
Following a large response to their protest, the Ministry of Home Affairs was able to break her strike last night. Agreement was reached through negotiations carried out by various members of civil society.
Apart from demanding justice for Kurmi and Dhobi, the activists had been demanding implementation of the investigation report of separate government probe committees into the death and disappearance in the two separate cases from Banke district.
They have also demanded a separate independent investigation by a powerful police mechanism. The MoHA agreed to involve the Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police to investigate the murder case. This succeeded in breaking the hunger strike of the agitating activists.
The agreement became possible after hours of talks last night at the MoHA. The meeting was jointly held by Home Joint-secretary Mukunda Prasad Niraula, Pradip Kumar Koirala, and Bhishma Kumar Bhusal from the government side and Ruby Khan, who was joined by member of civil society Dr Govinda KC, human rights activist Mohana Ansari and advocate Om Prakash Aryal from the agitators' side.
Earlier, these civil society members had met Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba last week and requested him to take prompt action in the Nakunni and Nirmala cases.
Talking to the media this morning from the site of their hunger strike at Babarmahal, the activists warned that the government should be watchful as powerful leaders of the ruling party in the district and powerful land brokers may influence or disrupt unbiased investigation.
Nakunni Dhobi and Nirmala Kurmi were murdered in two separate incidents by two separate accused persons in Nepalgunj of Banke district last year. Nakunni of Newaji village in Banke was found dead hanging inside her house on 20 July 2020 under mysterious circumstances. Her neighbours and relatives have demanded a probe into her socalled suicide as they had found multiple bruises all over her body. They also said that she used to suffer horrific domestic violence for a long time. However, despite the demand for probe into her mysterious death, police had hurriedly concluded the case saying it was a suicide. Nakunni's parents had accused her relatives of killing her in a bid to forcibly get her property in their name.
Similarly, Nirmala Kurmi of Paraspur village in Banke had gone missing since December last year. At that time, the relatives had lodged a complaint with the police regarding the disappearance of Nirmala, who was also a single mother and owned a bit of land following her husband's death. But, police showed little interest in searching for Nirmala after she went missing.
Only after several days, police informed her relatives about her death. Her family has lodged a complaint of abduction and killing. The police complaint was lodged against seven people, including former MP and Congress leader Badshah Kurmi. But police have not filed any case against Badshah saying they couldn't find any evidence against him in the case. In Nakunni's case, her husband and brother-inlaw are presently in jail for investigation.
A version of this article appears in the print on January 6, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
