I live in Kanchanpur in Saptari district. On November 21 I left my house at six in the morning to meet the education minister, who was speaking to some journalists in Bardibas, Mahottari. All along the way, the roads looked deserted. In Lahan, youth were burning tyres on the street.
By 6 p.m. I was back in Saptari district. I met these four Dalit youth, each carrying a stick, on the road in Rupani. They belong to the Musahar community. The boy in the middle is Ram Bilas Sada. He lives in Chinnamasta, a border village 30 km away. He was carrying warm clothes for the night. The Madhesi parties had called on the villagers to occupy the streets and donate twenty rupees and a kilo of rice from each household, saying the protests would carry on for a long time. Their slogan was “rajmarg bharu” – fill the highway.
Ram Bilas told me about 50 youth from his village had come to protest. Later that day two protesters would die, one of them a Dalit man.
By nine, I was back in my home in Kanchanpur, Saptari. I saw protesters stop an ambulance on its way to Janakpur. Instead of a patient, it was carrying 500 liters of petrol. The driver fled the scene as soon as the vehicle was stopped. The protesters wanted to burn down the ambulance for smuggling petrol, but Anuj Yadav, a coordinator of the Morcha, stopped them. Yadav lived nearby. Several protesters became angry and threw rocks at Yadav’s house. In the end, the protesters seized the jerry cans, poured the petrol out on the street, and lit it. The cover photo shows the resulting blaze.
Around 10 p.m., the security forces tried to clear the roads by forcing the protesters off the road. The protesters responded with stones to police laathis. Soon, the police opened fire at the protesters in several locations in Saptari.
Another protester, Birendra Ram, was killed in Bhardah.
A curfew was declared by the district administration at one the morning. In the morning, irate protesters burned down a police post in Rupani. At around 10 a.m., police and protesters clashed once again. Clashes also occurred in Rajbiraj and other locations. By evening, two more had died from police bullets.
Angry protesters broke parts of a bridge in Barmijhiya, near the camp of Dantakali Battalion of the Armed Police Force. They thought I was a police spy and tried to seize my camera. Two trucks full of APF men arrived at the scene. After a brief confrontation, the protesters dispersed. Similar scenes were played out in Rupani, Kanchanpur, and Bhardah, though with deadly consequences. But the protesters are undeterred and are assembling in Mahendra highway in thousands.
Cover photo: Protester destroy petrol. Unless otherwise stated, all photos by Bhola Paswan. http://recordnepal.com/wire/battle-mahendra-highway#sthash.0Ts9zd83.dpuf
