Siraha, April 20
At least two dozen people, including five policemen were injured in a clash between police and locals in Siraha's Mirchaiya today.
The clash erupted as the protest of locals unhappy with the local government's act of removing illegal structures over the past three months took an ugly turn today.
Back in February and March, the municipality had used force and removed over three dozen houses and sheds illegally built on government land in the bazaar area. The locals, however, have accused the municipality of showing high-handedness by displacing them from the place they have been living in for years and have been protesting ever since.
While they have sought investigation of the municipality's 'high-handedness', they have also sought compensation and land-ownership certificate for the land they have been forcefully evicted from. Despite the fact that we have been living here for years and a process is underway to provide us land ownership certificate, the municipality acted on its whims and destroyed our homes and got us displaced, the agitators accused.
The victims have also formed a struggle committee to fight for their cause.
"We have been protesting for the past three weeks over the municipality's injustice and today too, as per the pre-set programme, we had gone to the municipality to stage a sit-in, but we were attacked. This is why the situation got worse," said the struggle committee coordinator Anjaya Sah.
Police had to fire 27 rounds of bullets in the air and 11 rounds of tear gas to bring the situation under control. "The demonstration was said to be peaceful but as the protesters started to push against the municipality gate, manhandle the police, and damage vehicles and buildings by throwing bricks, police had to use force," said District Police Office Siraha's Information Officer DSP Rabindraraj Pande.
The municipality office windows and the glass of vehicles parked on the premises were damaged. The injured are undergoing treatment at different health facilities.
A version of this article appears in the print on April 21, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
