Store documents, accounting department files, library, government and private vehicles were engulfed in flames. Before setting the assembly hall on fire, some protesters sat on the speaker's chair and took a photo session.
At around 2:30 in the afternoon on 24th August, the quiet administrative center of Koshi Province at Devkota Chowk in Biratnagar suddenly turned into a battlefield. Angerulus was going on around the assembly building, it looked normal.
Banners and slogans, words of protest, mild vigilance by the police, that's all . But, suddenly a crowd entered . The protestors were gradually advancing towards the assembly building. The protestors started throwing stones at the police. The crowd broke through the barricade and started moving forward. Madan Bhandari, a technical employee of the State Assembly, was observing this scene from inside the
office. Suddenly, the crowd got bigger. The police moved later. The crowd grew to such an extent that the police could no longer handle it. There were more than a hundred policemen, but thousands of protesters.
Some protesters resorted to vandalism, some went to arson . After the crowd, we staff We came out, Bhandari said, 'We have to save lives.'
After the crowd came, Praveen Neupane, the driver of the state assembly, also left the office and went out. When he reached the outer quarter, there was a heavy police guard at the gate, but the guard was torn apart in a moment. The police team retreated, the crowd occupied the main gate of the assembly. "The first fire broke out at the entrance," office assistant Punya Timsina said, "the police surrendered, then the crowd concentrated towards the office and the meeting hall."
He entered the west quarter first to save his life. However, thinking that it might be difficult there too, he left the office premises. "There is nothing greater than life," he shared his experience. Secretariat assistants Anjana Koirala and Saroj Yadav were stuck upstairs. Downstairs there was noise, vandalism, stone pelting . "We stayed on the upper floor so that nothing would happen," Anjana narrated her experience, "but after vandalism and arson started everywhere, we ran away with our lives." The injured policeman was being treated near the stairs. They were doing the bottom . After the crowd entered, they hid in the office of the speaker in the assumption that they would not cause any major damage. However, in a moment, the crowd could not stop. The vandalism has begun .
'When the fire started in the building, I felt panic,' Ojha said, 'I couldn't think of anything except how to get out.'
They went from the speaker's office to the office of the UML parliamentary party and stayed for a while. At that time, Acting Secretary Gautam Raj Amatya and the police called and asked, "What are you doing there?" After lighting the fire, get out quickly ?' With the sound of the phone, they got more scared. Finally, Prem said, "Now we tried to get down anyway." "I felt barely alive when I came out," said Ojha, "The fire was still going on, we left through the back gate."
cameraman Vasu Paudel entered before office hours. In the beginning, listening to slogans, he was working on the edge of the crowd. However, the office was under siege as the protestors entered from both the east and west directions. Then he also left the office . Later, he directly saw that even the people who came to see Ramita got into the crowd and started looting.
'After the fire, when the fire was extinguished, the robbers came and started looting the goods. We and the police could not do anything," he said.
Bhandari of the technical branch was watching the events from the third floor . "I didn't expect it to be this big," he remembered, "within half an hour of the fire, the building was like a scorched meadow." Before setting fire to the assembly hall, some protesters sat on the speaker's chair and had a photo session. ``It was thought that some books could be taken out by breaking the window, but I didn't dare. Thousands of books Seeing that it was turned into ashes, my heart burned very much", said Bhandari.
The media center, which was initially safe, was later set on fire . The group involved in looting ran away with TV, computer, camera, table, chair in auto and city rickshaw. From the computers of the technical branch to the stapler pins, they took away .
Information Officer Niroj Dhakal says, "Nobody had imagined such destruction." In the past, there were many protest programs during the identityist movement. However, Dhakal says that he has experienced this level of violence for the first time. "On that day, the state assembly looked like a battlefield," said Dhakal, "Everyone had to bear unimaginable losses."
