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Survivors of rape and sexual violence in Dhanusha district are compelled to wait for year on end to get justice from the court of law. Concerned family members and survivors say the District Court, Dhanusha, doesn’t give due priority to their cases despite their repeated pleas. A case in point is the incident in which two sisters, both of the underage, were drugged and raped in Chhireshwarnath Municipality. It took the court nearly four years to hand down its conviction against the perpetrator. That period between the incident and the sentencing was harrowing for the two girls and their parents. The family was not just burdened by debt while fighting the case, they were also constantly threatened and pressured by the community members not to drop the charges and agree to an out-of-court settlement. “The situation in the village reached to the point where we could no longer live there,” the girls’ father tells ApEx over the phone. The family moved to Kathmandu to fight the case and start anew. After moving to the Capital city, the girls’ father started working menial jobs to raise his family. Every now and again, he traveled to Dhanusha for the case hearing. “I cannot describe how much I had to go through to bring this culprit, who ruined the lives of my daughters and my family, to justice,” he says. “At one point, I had thought about giving up because the court was too slow to act. My family was saddled with debt. The only thing that kept him going was my two little daughters.” The case was presented for hearing 31 times before the perpetrator was sentenced to 12 years in prison and ordered to pay Rs 500,000 in compensation. There are scores of cases concerning rape and sexual violence awaiting hearing in Dhanusha. The court records show 92 cases, some of them from three years back, are still under judicial consideration. Bikash Basnet, the district court registrar, says the process of justice delivery has slowed down, as the judges are overwhelmed by cases. “One judge has to decide on over 1,100 cases. Still, we try to prioritize serious cases like rape and sexual violence against girls and women,” says Basnet. He claims that the court has formed a separate department to look into and prioritize pending cases. “We will soon start fast-tracking the cases based on their priority,” he adds. Data at the Madhes Province Police shows 734 rape cases and 217 cases of molestation and sexual violence and were reported in eight districts of the province in the past three years. Advocate Rekha Jha believes the situation of sexual crime in Dhanusha and other districts in Madhes province is far worse than what the records show. “We know and we have seen how when there is a rape incident, there are efforts to hush-up the case, how community members and neighbors try to pressure the victim to keep silence,” says Jha. “This practice is still common, particularly when the perpetrators are related or know the victims.” She adds the stigma surrounding rape and sexual assault encourages the culture of keeping the crime a secret, or negotiating out-of-court settlement. “Survivors of rape and sexual assaults rarely go to the authorities themselves,” she says. “And when they do, our justice system delays the hearing, driving them and their families to mental and financial distress.”

When Chancla Devi went into labor in the middle of the night, she was rushed to Provincial Hospital in Janakpurdham, where she underwent a C-section surgery and gave birth to a baby boy. As the baby was sickly, the doctor suggested that he be kept in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit. “The NICU at the hospital was full at the time,” says Rabindra Sah, the baby’s father. “So Dr Abhaya Mandal told us to take the baby to Naina Hospital at Ramananda Chowk.” Naina Hospital is a privately run facility established by Dr Brijmohan Rajak, who also works at the Provincial Hospital, some 16 months ago. It is registered with the government. “It turned out, the hospital did not have an NICU, and the doctors lied to us,” says Sah, who hails from Sarlahi district. “Days after admitting my baby, they told us he did not survive.” Sah claims his newborn died because Dr Mandal referred his baby to a hospital that is being illegally operated. He says the doctors refused to refer the baby to a proper hospital despite his repeated requests. “They kept telling me that the baby was doing fine when he was not,” says Sah. “They killed my baby and then handed me a bill for Rs 32,000.” Dr Mandal refutes Sah’s allegation. “The baby had a heart condition,” he says. “We did our best to save him.” He did admit that he had referred the baby to Naina Hospital. He, however, says that he had no idea the hospital was not registered with the government. The hospital owner, Dr Rajak, says they are in the process of registering the hospital. There are dozens of unregistered hospitals and pharmacies in Janakpurdham, where people visit on a daily basis. Bijay Jha, director at the Health Directorate under the Social Development Ministry of Madhes Province, says though they don’t have the actual figure on the number of unregistered hospitals and pharmacies in the city, it could be close to 90 percent. “These are privately run facilities. We are still in the process of collecting their details,” says Jha. City Hospital, Nawajiwan Hospital, Tarai Rajdhani Hospital, Dhanusha Hospital and City Hospital Care Nursing Home are some of the hospitals based in Janakpurdham. Likewise, there are dozens of pharmacies and diagnostic centers close. The government has not recognized the majority of these facilities As per the law, to open a health facility with 25 beds or less, the operator must obtain a permit from the local government. The provincial government issues permits for hospitals with more than 25 beds. Saroj Mishra, a social activist in Janakpurdham, says most hospitals, pharmacies and pathology labs running in the city are illegal, and people in the medical profession themselves are behind them. “The government is not doing anything about this because those who own these facilities are politically connected,” he says. “Hospitals and pharmacies are being treated as profit-making businesses, which is unfortunate.”  

It has to be the most brazen incident of corruption by a local government. In its financial details for the fiscal year 2020/21 presented to the Office of the Auditor General (OAG), Janakpur Sub-metropolitan City presented a ridiculous bill of Rs 710,000 for feeding 803kg meat to the local representative during its two-day city council meeting.

The breakdown of the expenses is thus: the meeting participants consumed 653 kg of mutton worth Rs 653,000 and 150 kg of chicken worth Rs 57,000. There is no mention of how many people attended the two-day extravaganza; there must have been a lot, one can imagine, since the cooking staff were paid a handsome Rs 125,000 for their trouble.  

The meeting was reportedly televised live as well and for this, Janaki TV had charged Rs 15,000.

Then there was the expense incurred while buying ceremonial shawls (360 units of them) for the meeting participants that ate Rs 142,000 from the event’s budget. The local government of Janakpur also seemed to have spent generously (upward of Rs 700,000) to ply the meeting attendees with snacks and cold drinks.  

The sub-metropolis had allocated Rs 5m for the event of which Rs 4.38m was spent, according to the financial details.

This is just one instance of apparent financial misappropriation committed the local representatives of Janakpur city. The annual OAG report is chock full of expense details that do not add up.

The city has presented a bill of Rs 2.3m under the heading of mosquito control program. If you ask Janakpur residents, they only remember the city workers fogging the streets and neighborhoods a couple of times. The city had allocated Rs 4m for mosquito control.

Sudarshan Singh, former chair of one of the city wards, blames former mayor Lalkishor Sah for all the financial discrepancies. He says Sah and his people “were never transparent on how the city was spending its budget”. Millions of rupees were spent during the inaugural session of the city council meeting alone but no one knows the exact figure.

Former mayor Sah is also accused of wasting the city’s budget to publish a book about cultural heritages of Janakpur.  Rs 483,000 were released for the publication of 528 units of the said book. Many were miffed when the book came out for its inferior quality. Worse still, it had the name of Sah’s son emblazoned on its cover.

Incumbent Janakpur Mayor Manoj Kumar Sah agrees his predecessor had not been transparent in city’s expenses while vowing to “play by the rules, be transparent and cut back unnecessary spending”.

Members of the Chandrakant (CK) Raut-led Janamat Party are resorting to hooliganism to make their presence felt in Madhes ahead of the impending elections.

The party, which renounced plans to continue agitating for ‘free Mades’ to join mainstream politics, has been taking action against people’s representatives and officials, and this has upset members of the bureaucracy.

“Raut’s cadres are acting like hooligans to create an environment of terror,” says Lal Kishore Shah, mayor of Janakpurdham sub-metropolitan city. “The so-called progressive political parties are carrying out such activities, which will make people question the very foundation of federalism.”

Members of the party recently physically abused Rajeshwor Kushwaha, acting chief of Department of Water Supply and Sewage Office, Janakpur. They accused Kushwaha of not doing enough to fill a manhole in front of Raut’s house at Balawa, Janakpurdham-8, forced him to take off his clothes and paraded him across the city.

The party cadres had earlier visited Kushwaha’s office with bamboo sticks to threaten him to follow their orders.

Various professional organizations have condemned the party’s actions. The engineers’ associations, the government trade union, Nepal Tarai engineers’ society, and Madhesi Democratic Society have raised concerns about the incident.

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Acts like these discourage public servants from doing their job, says Bandhu Prasad Banstola, chief district officer, Dhanusa. “The activities of the Janamat Party have made a mockery of the idea of rule of law,” he added. “These kinds of activities are carried out by underground and outlawed groups, not political parties.”

Raut’s men also manhandled another employee of the city. The cadres also vandalized the city’s office as they were denied an appointment with the mayor or his deputy. Armed with bamboo sticks, they had picketed the chief minister’s office on the same day.

“No political group should think that they are above the law,” says youth leader Saroj Mishra. “Raut himself is corrupt, he sold out his agenda. It doesn’t suit him to speak against corruption,” he says. “First, he should make the party’s finances public.”

Raut, meanwhile, says he doesn’t find anything abnormal about the party’s activities. “The people are fed up with corruption. None of the officials listens to the people’s voices. The executive is corrupt and so is the judiciary. The CIAA is also abeting the corrupt. What should the people do then?” he asks.  

“These kinds of incidents happen even in places where there is rule of law if people’s voices are not heard,” says Raut. He adds that his party plans to launch a campaign against corruption in the city.

The party has also demanded that police release the 17 cadres arrested following the incident involving Kushwaha. “The 17 were arrested as they resorted to hooliganism and assaulted an office chief,” says DSP Jitendra Basnet.

The party has announced plans to organize a series of protests, including motorcycle and torch rallies demanding their release.

Perhaps the most difficult time in life for someone is when they lose a loved one. The pain is more severe when a loved one dies an untimely death. Recently, there have been reports that when someone loses a loved one in Dhanusa district due to an accident, a suicide or an act of violence, they have to bargain with the police to claim the corpse. There has reportedly been a spike in this trend at Janakpur Zonal Hospital.

On August 12, Ajaya Thakur, 45, tried to commit suicide by taking poison due to house­hold problems. His family members immediately took him to Janaki Health Center in Janakpur, but he could not be saved. The police sent his body to Janakpur Zonal Hospi­tal for a post-mortem and they demanded Rs 500 to hand over the body to Thakur’s fam­ily. “As the family members were already shattered, they gave the money to the cops, no questions asked. They got no receipt,” says Ram Nath Shah, a distant relative of Thakur.

The family then searched for a vehicle to take the corpse home. They found one near the hospital but were cheated again. The normal rate for transferring a corpse is Rs 1,500 but the driver charged Rs 3,500. He gave a fake receipt of an establishment that is no longer in operation in Janakpur.

“The rate of transporting a corpse is fixed. If some­one tries to bargain with the families, they should be legally charged,” says Maha Sankar Thakur, a member of Samyukta Ambulance Chalak Sangh.

Janakpur Zonal Hospi­tal conducts a post-mortem on everyone who meets an untimely death in Dhanusa. Once the police is notified of the death, they carry out necessary procedures like inspecting the site of death, taking the corpse to the mor­tuary, and overseeing the post-mortem process. All these services are actually free of charge, but the police ask the families of the deceased to pay a fee.

The hospital’s medical superintendent Dr Nagendra Prasad Yadav says that such police acts, if true, are con­demnable. “This is a serious issue and must be thoroughly investigated,” he says. But he adds that nobody has notified him of the police demanding money from the families of the deceased.

But some hospital staff cor­roborate the allegation against the police. They say the police demand anywhere between Rs 500 to Rs 2,000 from the families of the deceased, telling them they would be spared unnecessary legal has­sles if they pay up. Some fam­ilies pay because they think they are supposed to; others because they don’t want to haggle with the police.

In the past fiscal, 443 corpses were brought to Janakpur Zonal Hospital for an autopsy. The hospital’s post-mortem facilities, how­ever, are unsystematic. About 10 meters from the hospital is a cramped room where the bodies are kept. It is so small that some corpses are kept on the floor. Even though the hos­pital has bought three freezing machines for storing corpses, there is no proper building to install them.

And the hospital does not have any autopsy specialist. Dr Yadav informs that some doc­tors are trained on post-mor­tems. “But only if we have a separate autopsy department and can hire specialists will the dismal situation improve,” he says.

As the hospital gets many unidentified corpses, they remain in the morgue for months, and people in its vicinity have to bear a terrible stench.

Janakpurdham : Among the many acts formulated in Province 2, the one that’s been discussed the most is the Provincial Police Act. Province 2 Governer Ratneshwor Lal Kayastha signed the Provincial Police Bill, 2018 into law on December 30. The act, which was endorsed in accordance with Article 201, Sub-article (2) of the constitution, has 14 chapters, 102 clauses and 2 schedules. Clause 99 of the Act states that the operation, supervision and coordination of the provincial police will be in accordance with federal laws.

Clause 100 states that until the provincial Public Service Commission is formed, the federal Public Service Commission will carry out necessary tasks and responsibilities. Likewise, Clause 6, Sub-clause 1 states that the organization, structure and size of the provincial police force will be determined by the provincial government in consultation with the federal government.

Although the Act has been endorsed, it hasn’t been implemented. This is because the Federal Police Act hasn’t been issued and the bill on the formation of the provincial Public Service Commission hasn’t passed.

That the provincial government introduced this Act before the Federal Police Act was formulated created a lot of controversy. Some argued that in doing so Province 2 government was trying to subvert the constitution and the federal government. But Mohammad Lal Babu Raut, Chief Minister of Province 2, believes that the Act is a constitutional right for the province and will play an important role in facilitating coordination with the Center. “The constitution has bestowed this right on the provinces and we will make sure it is successfully implemented,” says Raut.

This Act is the embodiment of the provincial police force that the constitution envisions, says Dipendra Jha, Chief Attorney of Province 2. “It will bring about many positive results if the Center plays the role of a guardian and offers advice and encouragement to the provinces. The inclusive Act formulated by Province 2 can also be a good model for other provinces to emulate,” says Jha.

Also Read:

Province 1: Learning the ropes of federalism

Province 3: Learning the ropes of federalism

Gandaki: Learning the ropes of federalism

Province 5: Learning the ropes of federalism

Karnali: Learning the ropes of federalism

Farwestern: Learning the ropes of federalism