Apropos of the disturbing news story “Police high-handedness becomes viral” (THT, November 15, Page 3), we are not aware of such police savagery even during the worst days of the royal reign.

At a time in the nation’s history when common man and woman are supposed to be the fountain of supreme power, the woman’s manhandling by a cop in the photo deserves condemnation.

What is even worse is a male cop’s brutality against a woman that will surely elicit Nepal’s allpowerful VAW activists’ demand for swift justice including summary dismissal of the perpetrators.

It is quite possible that the woman could have provoked the man in blue, as these days even vegetable vendors on the footpath with a few lemons and some chilly will retort in such a way that shoots up our blood pressure through the head.

But impudence and insolence of the disadvantaged group cannot be an excuse for a male cop beating up a woman in public in broad daylight, even if the latter is a hard-core smuggler.

Police need to be restrained like a friend of mine, a owner of a hotel, who once said that he would have liked to bath a difficult Western tourist in a vat of whiskey but cannot do so as he was in the business where ‘customers are always right’.

The same is with the police. They can never afford to lose their cool and if they cannot do so they should bid goodbye to such vocation, as my friend eventually did.

Meanwhile, women scribes, in addition to increasing their participation in the media, must not only take up this particular case but must also educate the disadvantaged ones, especially those who are in trade and business, on proper etiquette and behavior with customers (“More women needed in all sectors for development”, THT, November 15, Page 2).

Like I convinced a staff member, a woman from an aristocratic background, not to bark on the phone ‘ko bolya’ while answering the phone.

This is what our media need to do, enhance the polite skills, rather than talking of rights and politics and constitution all the time.

Manohar Shrestha, Kathmandu

Well done

On 12th November 2016, Nepal played a superb football match in order to get ahead of Laos in the semi-final of the AFC Solidarity Cup at the Negeri Stadium in Kuching, Malaysia.

Nepal performed well in the penalty shootout after regular time after the match ended in a 2-2 draw.

The South Asian team defeated the South-east Asian team by a margin of 3-0. It was really a matter of joy for a team like Nepal for the fact that Nepal reached the final for the first time in the tournament.

Before this, the best performance from Nepal was reaching the semi-finals of the 2006 AFC Solidarity Cup.

Pratik Shrestha, Baneshwor