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 It’s been nearly two months since the brutal rape and mur­der of 13-year-old Nirmala Pant of Ultakham, Bhimdatta munici­pality in Kanchanpur district. But Nepal Police has thus far failed to get anywhere close to solving the crime, this despite the police claim to the contrary. “Our investigation has been rig­orous,” says investigation officer in the case Krishna Raj Ojha. “And yet we have been unable to uncover incriminating evidence.”

Bhimdatta locals suspect the police are dilly-dallying so that vital evidence can be tampered with, if that has not already happened.

After all, it has been established that police officials involved in initial investigation had tried to system­atically erase evidence from crime scene. Another established fact is that initial investigation was aimed more at finding a scapegoat than solving the crime.

After Nirmala’s body was dis­covered on July 26, Nepal Police had deployed a probe team from its Central Investigation Bureau, which looks into serious crimes. When this team completed its inves­tigation, in conjunction with local police, it paraded before the pub­lic 41-year-old Dilip Singh Bista, a mentally-challenged person, as the perpetrator of the crime.

But as soon as Bista was present­ed as the prime suspect, the locals erupted in protest. They could not believe a mentally-challenged per­son was capable of pulling off such a meticulously-orchestrated crime.

In the ensuing police firing one person was killed while doz­ens were injured. After this the government formed another investi­gation team under Hari Prasad Main­ali, a joint secretary at the Home Ministry. The Chief District Office of Kanchanpur as well as its head of police were recalled.

As the locals had been arguing all along, Dilip Singh Bista was prov­en innocent when his DNA sample didn’t match the sample collected from the deceased body. The other suspect, Chakradev Badu, was also exonerated on the same ground.

Now the police are reportedly in the process of testing the DNA of the suspended Superintendent of Police of Kanchanpur Dilliraj Bista, who was initially in charge of the investi­gation, as well as the DNA of his son Kiran Bista and one Ayush Bista.

Besides, yet another probe team under CIB’s senior superinten­dent Thakur Prasad Gyawali has been deployed. This is in addition to an expert group of criminolo­gists that has been constituted to look into this crime. Moreover, on Sept 18, a separate ‘ladies team’ under Superintendent of Police Durga Singh was sent to Kanchanpur for investigation.

Nirmala’s family suspects foul play as all these investigations have thus far born no fruit. “It’s been nearly two months and Nirmala’s killers are still at large,” says Laxmi Pant, Nirmala’s step-mother. “We have started doubting if we will ever get justice.” She says the officers who erased evidence must be taken into custody and investigated. “It is vital that we know why they destroyed crucial evidence,” she says.

 Laxmi Badu, a ninth grader at the local Saraswati Higher Second­ary School, has been repeating the same thing again and again to every prying journalist. A classmate of Nirmala Pant, whose half-naked dead body was found in a sugarcane field in Bhimdatta municipality of far-western Nepal on July 26, Badu says she is still “deathly scared” while passing through the sugarcane field en route to school. These days Badu walks that road only in the company of her little brother. “I used to walk fearlessly, but no more,” she says.

Manisha, the elder sister of Nirma­la, says she does not feel like study­ing any more. “I had never heard of something so horrific. It has affected me deeply,” she says.

“Whether I am eating or doing my homework, I cannot stop thinking about Nirmala and what happened to her,” she adds. “I still cannot sleep at night.”

The three Pant sisters were sepa­rated by two years each. The eldest, Manisha, is 15, Nirmala was 13, and the youngest, Saraswati, is just 11. As their parents are now in Kath­mandu to lobby for quick resolution of the case and punishment for the culprits, the two remaining sisters are now under the case of their step-mother, Laxmi.

“They have taken it hard. The three sisters were inseparable,” Laxmi says.

Parwati Nath, an eleventh grader at the Siddanath Amar Higher Secondary School, is also petrified of venturing out alone. “I used to freely roam about with­out a worry, but after hearing of repeated incidents of rapes and murders of women and girls, I am really scared,” she says.

It is not just the school-going girls who are under stress. Their parents are as worried. “After what hap­pened to Nirmala the whole climate is steeped in fear,” says Dhanan­jaya Joshi, a teacher at Siddanath. “Parents are now having second thought about sending their wards to school.” He says he too is worried whenever his children are out.

“Many students now refuse to come to school,” says Jagannath Pandey of Saraswa­ti School, Nirmala’s alma mater. “My reading is that they will continue to be fearful unless Nirmala’s murderers are apprehend­ed and punished.”

In fact, most of the local students who have to cross the sugarcane field near the local Nimbukheda Riv­er en route have stopped coming to school. “We were supposed to take new admissions for Grade XI but after the Nirmala incident no new student has come,” Pandey says.

In the words of Puhspa Chand of Bhimdatta-6, also a teacher at Siddhanath School, and a parent of two, “children fear what hap­pened to Nirmala may next happen to them.”

It is not reassuring that since Nir­mala’s rape and murder, other sim­ilar cases have come to light in Kan­chanpur. For instance one Rajendra Bista of Beldandi rural municipality was apprehended on Sept 15 on charge of raping two minors. In yet another disturbing incidence, a father was sent to prison for raping his 12-year-old daughter.

“Instead of going down, the number of these disturbing crim­inal activities is increasing,” says Punam Singh Chand, an advocate and human rights activist. “The state should be more responsible. That said only collectively can we fight this scourge”

Chinese investors have been touring various places in Karnali at the invitation of the provincial government. According to Province Chief Minister Mahendra Bahadur Shahi, following their survey, the investors have shown a keen interest on big-ticket infrastructure projects.

Minister Shahi, who is pre­paring to go on an official trip to China, says he wanted to prepare the Chinese about what they could expect in his province. He says the Chinese are ready to invest in what is still “a virgin land in terms of development”, and as per the needs of the province. On Sept 16, representatives of China’s North-West Civil Aviation Air­port Construction Group, as well as some other potential investors, had toured various places in the province.

The company, which is owned by the Chinese govern­ment, has shown an interest in building a big airport in Karnali, possibly at Rara. North-West is the company that is also involved in the upgrade of Bhairahawa air­port to make it suitable for international flights.

Chief Minister Shahi informs that North-West representa­tives were studying the fea­sibility for a high-altitude airport at Mugu district’s Rara. As Karnali needs for­eign investment to develop its tourist, electricity, road and airport infrastructures, the Chinese were invited for the same purpose. “The Chinese are ready to invest in priority areas we select,” he says. “We will now coordinate with the central government to arrange for foreign investment.”

He said efforts are underway to invite more potential inves­tors from abroad. Besides Rara, the Chinese team has already surveyed Madan­echaur and Birendranagar, both in Surkhet, as possible airport sites.

Likewise, as the province plans to build big hotels, resorts and airport at Rara, with the larger goal of devel­oping Karnali as a tourism hub, investments in these areas have been sought.

Moreover, as the prov­ince is still unconnected to the national power grid, it has also requested invest­ment to make Karnali self-suf­ficient in electricity. “We see local electricity generation as a prerequisite for Karna­li’s industrial development,” Shahi says.

Potential investors have already surveyed several hydropower sites in the prov­ince. If the provincial govern­ment can come up with a via­ble plan, the investors have assured Shahi that they will provide ample support.

 As the country marked the third anniversary of the promulgation of the new constitution perhaps no other issue made as many headlines as the real or perceived disputes between the federal and provincial governments. Intentionally or not, the federal government has found it increasingly hard to devolve adequate power and resources to the seven provinces. There are a few reasons for this. One, most of the federal-level ministers and senior bureau­crats, long trained on the old unitary ways, are not used to such devolution. More accustomed to giving directives and having them blindly followed, they are struggling to internalize the fact of decentralization and devolution of decision-making: These days the provincial and local bod­ies have their own executive and legislative organs and the constitution empowers them to deal with most local issues on their own.

Two, the bureaucrats who were supposed to imple­ment the constitution and ensure smooth functioning of the new federation were never prepared for the tran­sition. They got no training or counselling. As such the provincial authorities are having a hard time convinc­ing them work under the new setup. The Chief District Officers for instance still prefer to report to the center rather than to province chiefs. Since many of the new laws to operationalize the federal system have not been formed, the judiciary also finds it easy to adjudicate in favor of the federal government during disputes.

Three, there is still a lot of trust deficit between the center and the lower tiers of government, even though the same coalition runs the federal government as well as all seven provinces. This owes to the fear among the federal leaders that the provincial chiefs perhaps want to establish alternate power centers. The federal government is also being blamed for allowing local and provincial governments to collect their own ‘punitive’ taxes, even though the constitution explicitly allows this. And when the federal government intervenes, it is castigated for usurping the prerogative of the lower tiers.

There are signs that the seven provinces will increasingly work together to secure greater autonomy for themselves. In a way, the provinces feel shortchanged as the federal and local governments between them are seen as making all vital decisions. It could be a while yet before a modus vivendi can be worked out between the center and the provinces.