Insecure capital city

It is no longer a secret that the law and order situation of Nepal has taken a serious beating in the past couple of years but an undisclosed Nepal Police report, which reveals that there are about 10,000 illegal small arms just inside the capital city, clearly suggests that things are worse than we might have so far imagined it to be. The fact that those using these arms include the Maoists’ Young Communist League and CPN-UML’s Youth Force is also a clear indication that the line between politics and crime is gradually blurring in the country.

The Nepal Police report throws some interesting insights. It mentions the names of the top places within the valley’s three districts – Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur – where the transaction of these illegal arms takes place. The report further reveals that the arms are mostly used for robbery, extortion and kidnapping. Besides political groups, the report says that those prone to use illegal arms include business people, those in the entertainment business, contractors, owners of manpower companies, realtors, among others. After having such incisive leads, it would be an utter shame if the police is not able to do something in the days ahead to curtail this trade and bring the offenders to book. We expect nothing less.

It is clear from the report that if the problem has to be nipped at the bud, then we must have a tighter monitoring mechanism at our borders because most of these arms make it to Nepal from the nearby Indian towns of Raxaul, Louki, Mujjafarpur, Jogbani, Lucknow, Sunouli, Banbasa and Gourifanda. Since a Nepali society minus criminal activities is also in India’s interest considering that we share a 1,800km-long border with it, both Nepal and India must work in tandem to jointly address this issue. We urge the two sides to sit together and discuss this problem and find working solutions to it.

Due to prolonged political crisis resulting in a pathetic law and order situation, we have today reached a situation where no one stands to gain. Well-off people keep arms at their disposal because they can no longer trust the state’s security apparatus. But they are doing this violating the laws of the land. Common people who carry on with their daily lives with utmost honesty have to ironically live in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. Something surely is terribly wrong, and it has to be righted without any further delay. The government must not only confiscate all the illegal small arms but must make utmost use of the cues that is has so painfully gathered and put a full stop to this illegal business once and for all.

Source: http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=22250