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 .The Nepal Communist Party has virtual control over all three tiers of government. It has over two-thirds majority in the federal parliament, and runs six of the seven provinces as well as most local units. It was precisely with this intent that the two biggest communist forces had formally united over four months ago. At the time, the two co-chairmen, KP Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal, had assured their skeptical countrymen that rather than wrangling they would work together as ‘co-pilots’ of the same airplane. It has not been a smooth flight. Dahal wasted no time in projecting himself as the prime minister-in-waiting, even as he was eerily silent on the many criticisms that came the way of the Oli government. Oli for his part has ruled both the country and his party by diktat. Dahal seems to have taken after Oli on this. Disenchantment among the rank and file is growing. This displeasure with the party leadership was evi­dent most recently after the selection of the NCP provincial in-charges (with the largely ceremonial role of overall party management in the province) and provincial committee chairpersons (who enjoy most executive powers).

The party statute confers this selection right on the 45-member standing committee. The committee members were thus aghast when the nine-member secretariat, under the effective control of the two co-chairmen, announced the names of these province-level officials—without informing the committee. Interestingly, four leaders close to Dahal and three close to Oli were made provincial committee chairper­sons; contenders from other factions were sidelined.

Meanwhile, those close to Dahal say he has already had a ‘serious discussion’ with Oli about the government’s inability to meet public expectation. They say he is as yet not angling for the post of prime minister or party chairman. He will go with the status quo for the first two years of Oli’s prime ministership. After that, “all bets are off”.

But even if Dahal is patient enough to bide his time, other party colleagues are getting antsy. Senior leader Madhav Kumar Nepal has grown progressively distant from Oli. Another senior leader Jhalanath Khanal has always been uncomfortable with the terms of party unification. Narayan Kaji Shrestha has resigned as spokesperson. And Ram Baha­dur Thapa, the Maoist home minister, seems intent on under­mining his prime minister every step of the way.

When the prime minister touches down on TIA on October 4 after an extended foreign trip he will have his hands full trying to paper over the growing cracks in the party edifice.

Some reckon the media has overdone Nirmala Pant rape-and-murder. There are seemingly other vital issues, including other similar cases. Such distraction would be dangerous. The 13-year-old native of Kanchanpur district who was brutally raped and murdered is no more an isolated victim. She is rather an emblem of the state’s apathy to even the most-pressing concerns of its people. Nirmala’s bereaved parents have met just about every influential politician and bureaucrat, including the prime minister, to press for justice. More important, hundreds of thousands have protested to put pressure on the government.

If Nirmala’s parents are still denied justice, there is little hope that a common Nepali, who has no such support, will tomorrow get justice in a similar case. As our main story this week illustrates (See Page 7), Nirmala’s friends and family are still traumatized. Local girls dread going to school alone. The whole of Bhimdatta municipality is steeped in fear. Yet the police, whose role has been dubious from the start, is nowhere close to apprehending the real culprits, even as it has paraded a few fake ones.

A young girl was raped and murdered in broad daylight, and in an area within easy reach of local police and army installations, and yet the investigators seem clueless. One thing is clear: some powerful people want to protect the real culprits. It remains to be seen whether the prime minister too wants to protect them or whether he stamps his authority to credibly assure people that the government cares about them.

 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”