Government to free protestors if border protests stopped

Kathmandu / October 2: The government has decided to take various measures to address the demands of the disgruntled political parties on the condition that the agitating forces stop staging demonstrations along Nepal-India border, highways and other sensitive places.

A cabinet meeting on Thursday took the decision to create conducive environment to normalize the situation while asking the agitating political parties to be ready for reciprocity on their parts as well.

“We have taken notice of the demands of the disgruntled political parties to provide medication to the injured protestors and release those arrested. But at the same time the agitating sides also should refrain from staging protests at customs along Nepal-India border and highways,” Minister for Information and Communications Minendra Rijal told reporters while emerging from the cabinet meeting at Singha Durbar on Thursday. “The agitating sides should also be equally responsible because people are in serious trouble just ahead of the festivals due to supply obstructions.”

He said that the home ministry may consider releasing the protestors if the authorities don’t have concrete evidence of their involvement in murder or any other serious crimes.

The minister also indicated that the government can withdraw all the security forces and other government agencies deputed at riot-hit zones back to their regular duty with a view to restore normalcy only if the protestors respond to the government’s request to end protests at the sensitive places.

“As the first step, the government will provide medical treatment to 19 protestors including 17 members of United Madhesi Front. It has been decided as per the demands of the Madhesi leaders during the talks today,” he said.

The cabinet meeting also directed the home and health ministries to expedite the process of distributing Rs 1 million each to the family of those killed during the protests. A previous cabinet meeting had decided to provide Rs 1 million to each of the 35 families of the protestors who were killed during the Tarai unrest.

The government took the decision in line with the understanding reached during the talks between the team of the major three political parties and Mahantha Thakur, chairman of Tarai Madhes Democratic Party (TMDP), earlier on Thursday.

“Just like the previous meetings, today’s meeting turned out to be positive in reaching mutual understanding. We hope we’ll reach a conclusion soon,” said UCPN (Maoist) Vice-chairman Narayan Kaji Shrestha, a member of the talks team.

During the meeting, Thakur had reiterated that the government should lift curfew at different places, withdraw cases against their cadres arrested during the protests, declare the dead protestors martyrs and provide reparations to the families of the dead protestors.

“We told him (Thakur) that the major parties are positive on meeting the preconditions. However, we also informed that withdrawing the cases against those who are found to be involved in murder or other serious crime during the protest was not possible,” said Shrestha. “We reiterated that the agitating side should immediately lift obstructions at the border.2

(Source : www.myrepublica.com)