The children sometimes question Bhagirathi saying, 'Why did you allow our father to go to the movement?' She says, ”I don't dare to answer.”
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Outside the capital, Butwal and surrounding areas of the former Lumbini region were formed as the center of the second mass movement. In order to challenge the royal power of the time, the protestors gathered in the district headquarters and markets of Ruppandehi and surrounding districts and demonstrated daily. Not only the political parties here participated in the people's movement, their fraternal organizations, students, civil society, lawyers, media workers, health workers as well as the general public also participated.
The protestors had their own roles and responsibilities. They had to fulfill their responsibilities diligently. 29-year-old Bishnuprasad Pandey, a health worker from Sunwal-5 forest in West Nawalparasi, was given the responsibility of taking the injured of the protest to the hospital.
2062 Chait 30 After lunch, Pandey along with his friends from the village reached Budh Chowk, the headquarters of West Nawalparasi, and participated in a procession to protest against 'royal autocracy'. When he reached the protest site with his nephew's bicycle, the police were lathi-charged and rained tear gas on the protestors. There was a stampede between the protestors. Pandey was assigned to help the injured protesters of the demonstration by taking them to the local Prithvichandra Hospital.
When the police opened fire on the protestors, there was a stampede . During that, two protesters were shot . One of the bullet victims recovered after treatment. Health worker Pandey fell on the ground with 6 bullets. He was seriously injured and brought to the then Lumbini Zonal Hospital in Butwal for treatment. According to the family, Nawalparasi was still breathing while being brought to the hospital. Then Pandey stopped breathing . And the news that he became a martyr spread. Relatives and neighbors came to know after the local FM radio broke the news of Pandey's martyrdom.
Bhagirathi still remembers the moment when her husband went to the movement. Remembering the moment when the husband's body arrived home with the protesters the day after he was injured, it feels sad. The memory of that day makes him cry even now. Why don't you cry! That day was the day his greatest joy was taken away.
Within five years of marriage, he had to lose his spouse . Even her husband could not hold back when the people were on the streets in the movement to return democracy to the country. "He always said that the country will develop only when people rule," Bhagirathi said.
Vishnu was the first person to receive martyrdom in former Lumbini region during Jan Andolan-2, he was declared as the first martyr of the second Jan Andolan . Bhagirathi was 4 months pregnant in her stomach when her husband was martyred. Two daughters were young. At first, the villagers and relatives did not inform her of her husband's death. She said, 'He got a rubber bullet, he is in the hospital, he kept saying that he will be fine after the treatment.' They did not drive on the east-west highway to reach the hospital immediately. It was not even possible to leave the little daughter and walk. 'I spent that night in curiosity and fear,' she recalled, 'next morning, a relative came and asked me to remove the truck parked in front of the house, and when people started gathering around, I felt something bad.' She told . After keeping it at home for some time, the body was taken to Triveni along with the protestors and the last rites were performed.
Vishnu's elder brother Lakshmi Pandey remembered his brother being declared a martyr by holding a tribute meeting. According to him, it was difficult to see the queue of people participating in his brother's last farewell. Now he feels that his brother's support for democracy has been wasted.
'My brother and I were active in social work,' Lakshmi said, 'It was called the King Throwing Movement.' The leader stopped remembering . The martyr's dream remained unfulfilled, his sacrifice was priceless.' Big leaders of CPN-UML reached the ghat to pay tribute to Bishnu, who had taken over the leadership of Aneraswaviyu during his student days. After that, the leader used to say in his speech that he would not let Vishnu's help go to waste. He said that the daughter-in-law had to suffer a lot due to the lack of a brother, carrying two daughters and a child in her womb. "We were in the shadows, but we couldn't make up for the lack of our brother," he said. Thinking about that is a difficult experience even now.'
It was Lakshmi who raised and educated his brother Vishnu. Having no parents, Lakshmi, who educated her brother and raised her to Aheb, reached Kathmandu to participate in Jan Andolan-2. While he was participating in the movement, he came to know about his brother's death but could not come immediately. He said that he arrived at Bhairahawa by plane the next morning and was taken home by a local journalist on a motorcycle. He said that even though his heart feels heavy when he remembers his brother, he is continuing with the thought of not letting the sacrifice he made die.
Bhagirathi says that the pain and struggle after losing her husband would not be remembered now. At the time of marriage in 2057, the headquarters of Vishnu's family was in Jodeni, Parasi. Bhagirathi and Vishnu, who entered the ancestral house as a bride, built their house together in 2060. The couple, who were making a living by conducting medical operations, envisioned a happy family with 3 children and were proceeding accordingly.
Vishnu used to help his wife in the housework, took care of her when she was sick. Bhagirathi was not worried even when her husband went to the movement. She said, everyone participated, he was more interested in social work, there was no stopping him, now after the incident, I wonder if he would have stopped it then!' Son Vijayraj could not see his father.
The children sometimes question and talk to Bhagirathi saying, 'Our father left without coming, why did he let us go to the movement?' She says, "I don't have the courage to answer, I can't tell you now with what courage I raised them." Bhagirathi used to answer that when the son asked if he did not see his father, seeing the picture on the wall, he was abroad, he would come. Once a neighbor friend told him that his father would come with sweets from abroad. After Vijay told where his father had gone and that he had come to Kathmandu from abroad to get him, Bhagirathi told her son about his father's death and that incident.
She said that Vijay and her two daughters do not tell her that they miss their father so much now. How much in my mind, the children of the martyrs were treated well in the school, the school was able to teach by giving a discount on the fees, the education office had the facility of giving 2000 monthly as education expenses, the martyr's wife was given 5000 monthly . By removing it, the government made it empty, nothing happened from the side of the state .
She said that the leader is forgetting the speech about giving education, health and employment to the children and families of the martyrs and is showing his grief. "The leader did nothing but insert his people, arrange jobs, and budget," she said She said that the state is silent about them. "We have tried to see if something can be done by establishing a committee for the families of martyrs, but the government did not listen to us, even if our people are gone, the lives of the survivors should be simple," she added.
'It is easy to live by eating hepai, only those who have experienced the challenge of fulfilling all the responsibilities alone will know . But now the child has also grown up, the child in the womb has reached the 12th grade when he became a martyr, now I think I am strong.'
-Bhagirathi Pandey, Martyr
Bhagirathi is currently working at a health center in Ramgram. She said that if she didn't have so many jobs, she wouldn't be able to afford her children's education expenses. He said that the sacrifices made by those who died would be important if at least they got facilities from the government. She says that even if she cries alone all night in memory of her husband, she will not walk in front of people with tears. "It is easy to live by eating hepai, only those who have faced the challenge of fulfilling all responsibilities alone will know," she said.
After her husband died without being able to be together for a long time, neither Bhagirathi thought about another life, nor did the family. "If my son can read well, that makes me happy," she said. She said that she does not like to show grief to anyone even if she has problems to cover all the expenses with the salary she earns.
There was a truck in the house . It was also helping in financial acquisition. However, she also said that after the accident, she was facing financial problems. But in order to fulfill the role of parenting led by time and circumstances, she said that she has led her children forward by living a struggling life alone.
Narayan Prasad Neupane of Parasi's Sunwal-12 Bhumhi also participated in the second public movement. He was studying in Kathmandu and the university gave him leave with the second mass movement and he also came home. "When I was sitting in the chowk near my house, I saw a group of people coming from the house," he said, "I also went on a bicycle to go." After reaching Parasi Chowk, he saw a crowd of people gathering in front of the district police office trying to enter the police premises. People started running away after the baton charge of the police started. The wall of the nearby school was broken, they entered through the gate and headed towards Buddhachowk,' he said. The police threw tear gas in Buddhachowk. After seeing Pandey falling in front of him in the same hull, Neupane also went to pick him up. He was also shot .
Pandey's head was bleeding, I was picking him up. Suddenly my back hurt . When I looked back, I was also shot, I saw that the valve was bleeding,' he added, 'I was shot, the person picked me up and took me away.' Seeing that Pandey's head was hit by a bullet and his condition was serious, he said that he also became unconscious and did not know anything else after that.
Naypane's bullet was surgically removed in Bhairahawa. "However, the bleeding did not stop and I was taken to Kathmandu by helicopter and treated at Veer Hospital for 19 days and recovered," Neupane said. This is how Pandey got martyrdom after being shot by the police.'
The police threw tear gas in Buddhachowk. After seeing Pandey falling in front of him in the same hull, Neupane also went to pick him up. He was also shot .
After Vishnu's death, local leaders and others discussed and established a foundation in his memory. The establishment, which has an area of 15 bighas, has a meeting hall, picnic spot, martyrs' museum, children's garden, etc. Lakshmi, sister of martyr Vishnu, said that the local government and the state government have made a structure from the budget made from time to time and there is a plan to make a chowpari for the elderly by progressing it. "Even though my brother is not alive, a statue has been installed in the institute premises for his memory," he said.
The Pandey family has formed a committee with the guardians of the martyrs' families and has planned to make a statue of 24 other martyrs who received martyrdom in the area in the museum in the foundation, and to make materials to look at their condition and movement at that time. Pandey informed that there is a plan to build a beautiful park in the establishment which the state government has allocated 50 lakhs.
After Vishnu's death, the then Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala called Bhagirathi to Kathmandu to give her a certificate of honor and to wear a dosalla. Bhagirathi still remembers that moment vividly.
Since then, Bhagirathi has experienced neglect of the martyrs from the government level. "We are a real martyr family, the state stopped even asking questions," she said, "now the word martyr has been cheapened." It seems that the sacrifice of the martyrs has been wasted.'
Bhagirathi gets emotional even when she remembers the old days . Even though he was still unconscious, she opened the body of Vishnu and looked at his face and said that she saw a bullet hole in the head. "I still remember that hole," she said. However, it is very sad to see that the political party that brought the people to the streets to bring people's rule has forgotten the martyr and his family.
