By Rabi Raj Thapa

The latest political mayhem Tinkune, Kathmandu on March 28 has become another unforgettable example of anarchy and disaster in the political history of Nepal. Nepal has seen many incidents in the capital in the past such as a lynching incident that killed six policemen falsely labeling them Mandales as unruly on April 23, 1990. The murderous conspiracy against a young photojournalist Surersh Rajak to lock in the room and burn to death is another horrendous incident. The paradox is suspicion of the involvement of government apparatus to orchestrate and aggravate such violence just to blame a party or a group of people without substantial evidence and reasonable grounds to believe.    

The Tinkune mayhem has made Nepali feel more unsafe, insecure, disappointed and angry. The underlying problem was the government’s biased policy and the prejudices against the monarchists added by the lack of application and practice of any commonly accepted Standard Use of Force by Nepal Police and the Armed Police Force. It is common for any law enforcement agency to have some trigger-happy police personnel who simply damage police credibility through unprofessional reckless behavior mass rallies, demonstrations and protests.

To prevent such mishaps, law enforcement agencies follow and adopt the Standard Use of Force Model which comprises five levels represented by three segments, i.e. subjects’ action (the amount of resistance the subject is posing); law enforcement officer‘s response (amount of force given based on the suspect‘s action, and officer-in-command and their perception of risk, (or how the individual officer assess the situation based on the subject‘s resistance). It is hard for the general public to assess the mental state of a poorly trained uniformed police to face unruly deliberate saboteur subversive political infiltrators who were fully backed by the government forces and media.   

In this regard, Nepal Police badly failed in one cardinal principle of law enforcement in the use of force was to follow and respect “the Sanctity of Human life at heart”. That also reflects a lack of qualitative training and leadership to prevent faulty decision-making in applying the proportionate degree of force necessary to mitigate the threat with the least damage to life and property. This was totally missing in the Tinkune incidents.

Now the question is – who is to be blamed when there are many players behind the scenes who caused Tinkune mayhem besides the police? One of the main reasons is the political ulterior motives of the coalition of communist parties who were also organizing parallel mass meeting at the Vrikuti Mandap stage; fully backed by the Home Minister wholeheartedly by media propaganda hype, directed to defame and counter monarchists by moral ethical or unethical means.

After the Tinkune incident, the image of both police organizations has rocked the bottom once more. Now, they will need to build understanding and trust by issuing fact sheets and reports with reasons to justify their use of force in the incidents. It is important that all critical incidents and police actions resulting in death should be reviewed in such a way by their specially trained police personnel and made public soon after such incidents. It is of utmost importance for all law enforcement agencies to try to be as transparent as possible in providing information about use-of-force fatal incidents.

Despite the full blame game of the government and the media, nobody has gained anything from the March 28 mayhem and chaotic disturbances except some foreign interest groups. The incident has highly impacted the psyche of both police and people adversely.

Finally, high expectations from deplorably low levels of the physical and emotional well-being of police personnel is a risky and dangerous business. After any shooting incidents, police personnel also experience feelings of anxiety, isolation, and even depression that remain in their mind for the rest of their career and life.