West Side Story: Children of Dhallapur
By Anand Gurung
The decade-long armed conflict in Nepal has left behind indelible scars. The conflict exacted a heavy human cost. Around fifteen thousand lives were lost and many more people were maimed and injured.
Stories of tragedy and trauma are still recalled with undiminished horror by people in several parts of the country. Mid-west region was one of the flashpoints during the insurgency and villages in the region still bear testimony to the brutality of the conflict. The tragedy of Dhallapur is one such story.
Dhallapur is a little village in Mohammedpur VDC of Bardiya district in mid-western Nepal. Like most villages in the Terai plains, it is unbearably hot here during summers and except for paddy fields stretched far and wide there is nothing that would make a traveler remember his visit to the place.
But during the peak of the Maoist insurgency, this sleepy little village was thrust into limelight, as it was witness to one of the most brutal carnage that would haunt the national psyche long after the conflict ended. The locals still bite their tongue whenever they are reminded of the Dhallapur incident in which the Maoists suffered one of the biggest defeats at the hands of the security forces in their decade long war. Official records put the Maoist casualty at 46; but locals say it was much more than that; near about 70. Two Armed Police Force personnel were also killed in the incident and few more injured.
Being one of the most Maoist-affected villages in the whole of Bardiya, the locals were quite used to Maoists coming to their houses asking for food and shelter. They rarely saw security personnel march through their village and whenever they saw them coming they became fearful of a possible clash.
The villagers didn't have to wait long for that. February 28, 2005 was like any other day. The cold and foggy winter days [winter is equally treacherous in Terai] were just giving way to spring but life in the village was far from normal. The Maoist cadres had a month ago felled a big Sal tree near the main road so that it acted as a roadblock to prevent vehicles from Nepalgunj to head to district headquarters Gulariya. The villagers were certain of a clash now, as this was a strategy the Maoists used to draw in the security forces in their stronghold and "ambush" them.
So on the day security personnel from the Unified Command had been deployed in the village to clear the roadblock set up by the insurgents and also conduct a patrol to check the Maoist activities in the area. At 4 o' clock the fighting started when a patrol team was attacked by the Maoist cadres near the house belonging to Hariram Yadav. There were heavy exchanges of fire and the Armed Police Force personnel, finding themselves outnumbered, ran for covers. Few headed towards Yadav's house for safety with the hail of Maoist gunfire following them. Hariram's 7-year-old son Bijaya was playing at the front of his house when the fighting occurred; so when the Maoists opened fired at the fleeing security forces, he also got hit and immediately fell down. But seeing him still breathing, one security personnel took him in his arms and managed to save the boy by making it to the safety of the house. But in the process he himself got fatally shot and died soon after. The firing continued and stray bullets ricocheting from the wall injured four other members of Hariram's joint family.
However, Bijaya's condition was critical, as he had sustained bullet injures on his legs, hands and pelvic region. But he couldn't be rushed to the hospital immediately as the fighting was still continuing outside. The family tried to stop his bleeding and prayed to the god fearing that the boy might not make it till the next day. Later, army helicopters hovered above as more armies were brought in to repel the Maoist attack. Only the next day Hariram could call the ambulance and take Bijaya including four other family members who received minor injuries in the clashes to Bheri Zonal hospital.
At the hospital, the family heard that the army, with aerial backing from the helicopter, had made a feast of the Maoist rebels in the paddy fields. The same day there were also reports of heavy casualty on the part of Maoist insurgents in clashes with security personnel at Durgauli area in the far-western district of Kailali. It was a huge victory and a morale booster for the army. But three civilians were also killed in the crossfire. And few who were injured in it were scarred for life with the experience.
Among the injured undergoing treatment at the hospital was one Sabitri Raidas, 12, who lived a little way from Hariram's house with her family of five. When the fighting between the security forces and Maoists had started in the main road she was helping her parents out in the fields. She saw a column of security personnel pass through her fields and later few came to her asking for water to drink. Soon after she gave them water and was about to attend to work, suddenly and without any provocation, a security personnel fired at her from behind. The bullet pierced through her right calf and went out from the front, blood gushed out and she immediately fell unconscious. Later her parents found her lying in the ground in a pool of blood. But they too could only take her to the hospital the next day.
However, 13-yr-old Koshan Kumari Yadav's mother from the same village was not so lucky. She had just come to the house from the fields when she heard loud gunfire outside her house. When she peeked out from the window to see what was going on, a stray bullet hit her right on the head. She struggled with life the next day in the hospital bed and on the third day she succumbed to wounds.
After putting the dead bodies of Maoists along with the weapons captured on display for the press, the security forces arrived at the incident site the next day to diffuse the explosives lying scattered at the place. On the third day, Kathmandu papers quoted army officers as saying that life was slowly "limping back to normal" in the village and the residents were returning to "normal routine".
However, when your correspondent reached Dhallapur last week; nearly three and half years after the incident; to talk with the locals, especially the injured, about the clash that took place in their village and know how they were coping with the uncomfortable memory, normal was not the word that came into their mind.
We first went to Hariram Yadav's house. There we met Yadav's wife Phalsara who, when told that we were from the press, looked a bit annoyed at first. She said in the past many people like us had come to ask her about the incident, but nothing ever happened. She was very bitter. She complained in a hardly understandable Awadhi (later translated to me by the social activist working in the area) that almost 4 years had passed since the incident in which five of her family members including her son were badly injured, but her family received no consolation or compensation from anyone. She called her son Bijaya who was just getting ready for his school. He was now 11-years-old, but very shy and only answered to our questions when her mother coaxed him to. After some routine questions, I asked him where had the bullets hit him, and slowly he pointed at the deep scar on his left hand, hip and, shyly, below his abdomen. Although live bullets had just brushed past his hand and hip, a ricocheting bullet had hit him on his genitals and was stuck there.
Phalsara said that after the doctors in Nepalgunj said that they couldn't take out the piece of the bullet, she had to take her son to Kathmandu for operation. Although the doctors in Kathmandu's Bir Hospital successfully managed to take the shrapnel out, it took Bijaya quite some time to recover from his wounds.
"Even now he gets this burning sensation while urinating," Phalsara spoke for his son, "And as the entire village knows where he was hurt, they say that later when he grows up he would have difficulty in finding a wife for himself."
As other family members received only minor injuries, they returned home a couple of days after being admitted to hospital. But the family had to spend over fifty thousand rupees on Bijaya's treatment alone. It was because the family was relatively well-off in the village - having a huge tract of arable land and plenty of livestock - that they could afford such a hefty sum for his treatment.
"Sometime when I remember the day I got shot, I get really afraid," Bijaya later added. "Now my friends and teachers say peace has arrived and that I shouldn't be afraid. But I can never forget the day I almost died."
Later, Phalsara gave us a tour of her house, showed us the traces of the clashes that had taken place just outside her house -- easily distinguishable were bullet holes at the front portion of the house, in windows and doors. She said twelve of her buffaloes and cows also died after being hit with the bullet that day and their bodies lay scattered in the front yard of the house.
After a while Sabitri also arrived for the interview. She had a distinct limp in her legs and when we asked her to sit she said she is okay standing up as she has difficulty in bending her legs.
"I left my studies soon after that incident," Sabitri said remembering the day she got shot, "I get unbearable pain whenever I walk and I can't even sit for long. That's why I had no option but to stop going to school altogether."
After undergoing intense medical treatment for 9 days at the Bheri Zonal Hospital, the doctors referred her to a hospital in Lucknow , India where she underwent an operation on her calf. She was discharged from the hospital three months later and returned her house. But she hadn't completely recovered; so that she lay in her bed that whole year, often with fever, as she had grown very weak. Although her health has greatly improved now, but she still gets an unbearable pain in her legs when she walks and her doctor says she has to live with that her whole life.
"If I ever meet that army man who had shot me, I would ask him what was it for that he shot me, what was my crime. I was just giving water to his friends," she said coming into a fit of rage. Her family didn't file a complaint with the army about the incident, as they were afraid that they would only invite their wrath if they do so. So they thought it would be better to keep their pain to themselves.
"My parents sold a portion of our land for my treatment. My elder brother also spent Rs 100,000, all that he earned in Malaysia so that I could get well. People say peace has arrived and that the government would look after the victims of war now, but till now we haven't got even a penny in the name of help," she said, in one breathe.
Sabitri's mother said that though her daughter still wants to study, but since she gets pain in her legs regularly and has difficulty in walking to school or sitting in the class for long that they had no option but to let her discontinue her studies. And as Sabitri has a distinct limp, her mother is also concerned whether any guy would be willing to marry her daughter.
"Right now we are alive and so we look after her. But we won't be around for ever and I am worried how would she live her life then? I am really concerned about my daughter's future," Sabitri's mother said.
"I can't even do minor household work like cooking food, washing clothes and utensils, so working in the field is out of the question. Sometime I stay in the small shop we run in the village. Sometime my sister-in-laws get very angry with me for not being able to do household work and in those days I feel very bad," Sabitri said, and paused for a while. Her eyes had gone moist.
She again continued: "I have lost all hopes of getting any help from the government. The little help I have got from Dalit Welfare Organization is all. They have given me psychosocial counseling and it has helped a lot in dealing with my fears. They have also promised that after some time they will give me life-skill training or get me into some income generation activities. I just want to stand on my own feet, don't want to be a burden on anybody, not even my parents."
Like Sabitri, Koshan Kumari also left school after her mother died, mainly because there was nobody to do the household chores and also someone had to baby sit her little brother. She was studying in class 4 when she left her studies and when asked if she would like to continue her studies if she had the opportunity, she bluntly said, "There is no one to do my household work. How can I afford to study?"
"I cried a lot after my mother died, felt my world torn apart" she said in a sad tone, her face almost on the verge breaking down. What should happen so that she would feel that justice has been served to her? To this question she just kept mum. She stared at the ground and tears started falling in drops. We ended the interview.
Ishwori B.K, an activist with Dalit Welfare Organization (DWO) - a partner NGO of Save the Children Alliance which works with the conflict affected children and youth in Bardiya district -- said that it has just been few months that these three including other conflict affected children in the village are being given psychosocial care and support and that though notable improvements are yet to be seen, they are confronting the tragedy that befell them rather than trying to run away from it and develop various psychological disorders.
"Since the boy is still very young and studying in school, we have plans to give life skill training to Sabitri and Koshan only and get them into some income generation activities like beauty parlor, tailoring or even driving if they like. That is after we finish counseling them," Ishwori B.K said, adding "in the whole village these three children suffered a lot during the insurgency. The government has done nothing for them. However, in our own little way we intend to do something for them which will probably make a difference in their lives."
DWO has also been supporting Children Associated with Armed Forces and Armed Groups (CAAFAG) in the district, apart from working to ensure children's right to quality education and making schools adhere to the concept of "Schools as Zones of Peace" through pressure groups like child and youth clubs. The NGO has traced 63 "CAAFAG children" in the district till now, giving them psycho social counseling and support in the initial phase and later getting them into some income generation program. Two young men in their 20s, who were former Maoist soldiers, have received driving training from the organization and are looking for jobs now and three girls of the same age group including one who was jailed for 18 months by the security personnel wrongly suspecting her of being a Maoist combatant, received training in beauty & grooming techniques and also got financial help in opening up their own beauty parlors.
Now the local government is also waking up to its responsibility towards the conflict affected children, as many VDCs in the district are planning to allocate budget to support the education of CAAFAG children from this year on. nepalnews.com Sep 02 08
(Nepalnews.com is running a series on the effects of the decade-long conflict in the lives of children and their education in mid-western Nepal)
(The writer can be reached at andygurung@yahoo.com)
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