When I reached the National Trauma Center in Mahankal, Kathmandu, last Friday, there was a crowd of patients. Journalist Shambhu Dangal was standing with difficulty on crutches in the OPD queue. After being discharged from the hospital for 17 days, Shambhu has found it like a weekly chore to come to the trauma center from Narayantar in Kathmandu. With the help of his brother, he comes to the trauma center every Friday and returns after getting his dressing done.

Even though he came early and stood in line, this time his turn came very late. He was able to get ‘dressed’ only after waiting in line for two hours. Sitting at table no. 7 in the hospital canteen, he narrated how he was shot in the leg on 23 Bhadau.

Shambhu, who has been active in journalism for two decades, is the owner and editor of the ‘Naya Post’ magazine. On 23 Bhadau, he left Narayantar for Baneshwor early in the morning to report. He reached Baneshwor at around 11:30 am. A crowd had gathered and was shouting slogans. The atmosphere there suddenly changed. The police started firing rubber and ‘metal’ bullets one after another. He was capturing the scene on photos/videos.

Shambhu, who had experience reporting during the 2062/63 protests, was aware that he had to take photos/videos safely. Around 3 pm, the Baneshwor area had become a battlefield. ‘I was zooming in to take a video of the protesters demolishing the wall,’ he recalls, ‘suddenly I felt something hit my leg. It started burning.’ He could not control himself as blood started flowing from his left leg. Some nearby protesters came and helped him.

‘Oh! Brother, he has been shot’, ‘The blood kept flowing’, ‘Call an ambulance, ambulance’, similar voices kept ringing in Shambhu’s ears. The protesters searched for an ambulance but could not find one. When the blood started flowing profusely, they took him to the nearby Everest Hospital. 

‘The white tiles of the hospital were stained with blood,’ says Shambhu. There was only a ‘bandage’ to stop the bleeding. There was no medicine. ‘That day, only a bandage was applied,’ he says, showing a photo on his mobile phone. ‘When the blood started to show, when they added another bandage from the outside, the leg looked much bigger.’ Seeing the busyness of the doctors and his condition, the same question kept coming to his mind – ‘If the blood keeps flowing like this, will he die after the blood runs out?’ He would reassure himself – ‘The hospital has arrived, maybe he will survive.’

He was ‘referred’ to Bir Hospital around 5 pm. After waiting for half an hour, an ambulance arrived at Bir Hospital with three injured people. The situation in Bir was even more terrifying. ‘The OPD was emptied, mats were spread there and all the injured were kept there, some had their eyes broken, some had their heads broken. Some were crying, some were screaming,’ Shambhu thought, ‘I am a little better than the others!’

It was time for an X-ray around 7 pm. His left leg was pierced by a ‘metal’ bullet. The doctor said to operate on him because his leg was also broken. But there was no such environment here. As the hospital was filled with injured people, his turn came very late. The night of the 23rd was spent in pain and agony.

On 24th Bhadra, more injured people were added. Shambhu took the help of ‘antibiotics’ for 2 days. Only then did the surgery take place. He stayed in the hospital for 17 days. In the meantime, he kept asking himself – ‘I am an active journalist. For 20 years, my only profession has been journalism. I earn my living from this. I have a degree in journalism and am working dedicatedly in this field. What will happen now?’ He thought – ‘If journalists get into trouble, there is the Journalists Federation, various INGOs, NGOs, journalist associations affiliated with political parties, and social organizations, they will come to meet and help.’

However, in the meantime, no official of any organization came to meet him. ‘The party pays the membership fee of many journalists to the federation. But I pay myself, I have been renewing myself,' he becomes sad, 'In the meantime, I have not even seen the face of the president of the Federation of Nepali Journalists. How has the organization that claims to support journalists disappeared!'

He thought even after going a little further than the Federation. There is also the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. Which is concerned with the media sector. Shambhu was even more saddened by its neglect. A person established through media work is now the Minister of Communications. 'It has been about two and a half months since he became a minister. But he has not taken any interest in the situation of the injured journalist yet,' Shambhu complained.

Shambhu had quit his job with the intention of becoming self-employed. He had recently built a studio. He was working hard with the idea of ​​moving forward through new media. At the moment, he is not only worried about physical pain, but also about the financial crisis. 'It has been almost two and a half months. I have not been able to do any work,' he said. Along with the professional crisis, he is also burdened by family responsibilities. The government had provided Rs 20,000 for his treatment, while the Federation of Nepali Journalists had provided Rs 25,000. ‘Apart from that, no help has come from anywhere,’ he said. 

Shambhu says that media houses should take more care of the safety equipment of journalists when they go on risky reporting. ‘There is no orientation for journalists reporting in risky situations, nor is there any provision of safety equipment,’ he says. Shambhu recalled the Covid period a few years ago. ‘There was a similar crisis at that time too. I got infected two or three times when I went to the hospital to report. When I got infected, my family got infected. We journalists are going to report at risk, but who is there for us?’ he asks, ‘Unless we work for the professional safety of journalists in a policy sense, this will continue to happen.’ 

At the end of the conversation, standing on crutches, he said, ‘The government had said that it would arrange a free ambulance to bring me. But the administrative hassle is so long that even after waiting for 4 hours on the first day, he did not come, so I have been using ride sharing.’ A white taxi arrived at the hospital premises from a busy road. While entering the taxi with the help of crutches, he said with a smile, ‘I have not stopped writing news. I am still writing the stories of the injured.’

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Another journalist who was shot during the Gen-G movement on 23 Bhadra is Dipendra Dhungana of ‘Naya Patrika’. He was shot in the neck. That day, he was recording the movement on camera from behind a pole with four or five photojournalists from his group. It felt like something had hit him. He was completely burned. ‘When my friends told me that Dipendra had been shot, I was shocked. Blood started flowing,’ he said, ‘The whole finger that I tried to touch was injured so much. My friends took him to the Civil Hospital.’

The hospital beds were filled with the injured. Dipendra laid his bleeding body on a corner of the floor. The nurse applied bandages, but the bleeding did not stop. The wound began to hurt even more. ‘After waiting for a long time, an X-ray was finally done. When the doctor said that he needed to have an operation immediately, I started to panic,’ Dipendra said, ‘I had given up looking at the atmosphere in the hospital. After some time, I went to Patan.’

Dipendra was hit by two rubber bullets. He reached Patan Hospital and underwent an operation. He did not regain consciousness for two days. ‘There were two bullets just below his ear. If there had been a slight movement, anything could have happened,’ he said, ‘The doctors gave him a second life.’

Dipendra stayed in the hospital for almost a month. His treatment expenses were covered by the organization he worked for. On the sixth day of his stay in the hospital, some officials of the Federation of Nepali Journalists visited him. The Federation provided 15,000 rupees in assistance. However, he said that the state could not even provide an injured person card. ‘Journalists have become the Minister of Communications. But, he probably doesn't know that journalists have also been shot in the field,' he said in an angry tone, 'The injured were told to get free treatment, who was distributing cards, isn't that for journalists too?'

For Dipendra, who started taking photos in the field since the 2072 earthquake, journalism has now become not just a profession, but a struggle. 'Every time we work in the field, there is no guarantee that we will return safely,' he said, 'We are in the middle of the encounter. Who will do what, it doesn't matter.' He comments that media houses are indifferent to the safety of journalists. 'Journalists were beaten and burned to death in the royalist protest on Chaitra 15. The same rhythm is also in the Gen-G movement,' he says. Dipendra believes that media houses should invest in 'counseling', 'training' and security equipment. He says that the Federation of Nepali Journalists should also be responsible for the safety of journalists.

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Another injured journalist dissatisfied with the state system is Shyam Shrestha. Shrestha, who works for Kantipur Television, had set out for the Parliament building at 12 noon on Bhadra 23 to report. When he reached the south gate of the Parliament building, some protesters were breaking CCTV cameras, while others were breaking the barricades.

Shrestha, who has more than 22 and a half years of reporting experience, describes the situation at that time in detail, “The protesters were moving towards the main entrance. Then, even though lathicharge and tear gas were started, the police were retreating. The protesters started entering by climbing over the mesh. There were barely 15-20 policemen inside, but the number of protesters had already reached more than a hundred.”

At that moment, a policeman came out of the parliament with a rifle and fired in the air. In the meantime, a young man was shot and fell. Shyam ran at his own risk to get footage of the young man who had been shot. The young man was bleeding. Some protesters were taking off their shirts and covering the young man’s wounds. Shrestha captured all this on camera. 

Immediately, the firing started. He was trying to return to a safe place. ‘At that moment, I felt something swat past me. It gave me a slight jolt in my left arm, and I was also dizzy,’ he recalls. After walking a little further, he started to feel pain. He was bleeding. The youths around him shouted, ‘Uncle has been shot.’ Only then did he realize that he had been shot. 

The youths around him took him to the Civil Hospital. When he reached the hospital, the scene inside was like a battlefield. Noise, lack of doctors and nurses, and a crowd of two or three hundred injured people. Blood everywhere. He was given a ‘dressing’ on his arm, given a tetanus shot and sent home. The doctor and the office had told him to rest completely. But during the protest on 24 Bhadra, he could not sit still. He remembers, ‘The news came that the Kantipur office where I work had been burnt down. I was more hurt by that news than by my own wound.’

He hurriedly reached the Kantipur office in Tinkune. When he reached there, almost everything was burnt. Together with some friends, he set off to put out the fire. He said, ‘But some youths were waiting outside the gate to burn it again. The protesters repeatedly entered and set it on fire. They tried to set fire to the studio and the engine. But brother, don’t burn it, this house will burn, my personal vehicle has also burnt, this is our private property, so they prevented him from burning it.’

In the meantime, officials from organizations like the Federation of Nepali Journalists and the Press Council met him and provided him with some financial assistance. The organizations covered the treatment expenses. However, he has been troubled by the negligence in the safety of journalists in reporting.

He says that it has been difficult to work in the field due to the recent anger towards the media. ‘We can’t even wear press jackets now. The crowd chases us saying we are 12 brothers. In such a situation, we are afraid to even reveal our identity,' said Shyam.

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60 incidents of press freedom violations in a year

On 26 Kartik 2081, journalist Suresh Bhul was beaten to death in Kailali. On 15 Chaitra of the same year, journalist Suresh Rajak was killed in Tinkune, Kathmandu, while reporting on a royalist protest. Less than a year after the deaths of the two journalists, four journalists were injured in the Gen-G movement on 23 Bhadau. Shambhu Dangal, Dipendra Dhungana, Shyam Shrestha and Umesh Karki were shot while reporting. These incidents have shown that the safety of journalists in Nepal is becoming challenging.

Nepal's position in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Press Freedom Index has also deteriorated. Nepal, which was ranked 74th last year, has dropped to 90th place this year. According to the Federation of Nepali Journalists, 60 incidents of press freedom violations were recorded in 2081 alone. Similarly, a report prepared by UNESCO in 2024 also showed that Nepali journalists are becoming more insecure.

According to the UNESCO report, threats from the state during the 2062/63 conflict have now started coming from members and supporters of political parties. 52.6 percent of journalists surveyed pointed to political party activists as the main source of threats and abuse. Government agencies and security agencies are also the main sources of threats with 30.1 percent and 16.5 percent respectively.

The UNESCO report showed that independent journalists are at the highest risk. Of them, 64.41 percent have faced attacks in the last one year. Looking at gender, 87.3 percent of female journalists have expressed security concerns, while this rate is 83.9 percent among male journalists. Geographically, journalists from Madhesh Province have the highest security concerns at 97.62 percent. The report highlights the weaknesses of media organizations in the safety of journalists as a major problem. According to the study, 77 percent of media organizations have no mechanism to monitor security problems and risks. RSF Nepal Representative Binod Dhungel said that media houses should be responsible for the safety of journalists themselves. “The main responsibility for keeping journalists safe while reporting in the field lies with media houses. Media houses should provide them with knowledge, skills and necessary materials,” he said.