Nepal: Hindu Group Targets Minorities

“I lost everything,” an emotional Balan Joseph told the packed congregation at the Assumption Church in Kathmandu valley last Saturday, just a fortnight after a bomb went off in the Catholic church during mass, killing three and injuring 14.

The 41-year-old’s wife, Buddha Laxmi, and teenage daughter, Celeste, were among those killed in the tragedy.

Despite the violence, Christians were not giving into their fears and returned to mass as usual. “But I am closer to God now,” Joseph said. “I forgive their killers and I will continue to stay in Nepal.”

His determination to stay is a response to news that a shadowy organization called the Nepal Defense Army (NDA) claimed responsibility for the explosion and warned the nearly 400,000-strong Christian community to leave Nepal within a month or face the consequences.

Still, the threat cannot be dismissed lightly. The NDA, though virtually unknown three years ago, became a household name for Nepal’s Christian and Muslim communities last year after it systematically targeted them in eastern Nepal.

Headed by Ram Prasad Mainali, a 38-year-old from the Morang district in the same region, the pro-Hindu group bombed two mosques in the district, killing two people at prayer; attacked a Protestant church; and broke into the house of a Salesian priest, Father John Prakash, who ran the Don Bosco school in the town of Sirsiyain southern Nepal, shooting him dead.

Nepali journalist Dev Prakash Tripathi is one of the few people to have met the elusive NDA chief.

“In 2007, a lanky, unimpressive man walked into the office of our weekly paper in Kathmandu,” Tripathi told ISN Security Watch. “He talked of re-establishing Nepal as a Hindu state but we thought he was a crank.”

Nonetheless, Tripathi’s Ghatana R Bichar weekly published Mainali’s only interview in the Nepali media, in which he claimed to be an ex-policeman with an army of 1,200 former cops, soldiers and people victimized by Nepal’s former guerrilla party, the Maoists.

Mainali, who had used the nom de guerre “Parivartan” (which means “change”), also said the NDA was training suicide bombers who would lay down their lives to restore Hinduism as the state religion.

Until 2006, Nepal, a sleepy landlocked country hidden between its giant neighbors China and India, was the only Hindu kingdom in the world. However, an armed insurrection by the Maoists, who were trying to abolish the monarchy and turn Nepal into a secular republic, gathered public support when the king, Gyanendra, seized power with the help of the army in 2005.

Anti-king protests united the Maoists with the mainstream political parties, and the united opposition forced the king to hand over power to a resurrected parliament. The house subsequently proclaimed Nepal a secular state in 2006 and paved the way for an election last year which saw the formal abolition of the monarchy.

Against this backdrop, the NDA made its appearance.

The NDA’s debut

Unlike other, better known Hindu organizations – such as the World Hindu Federation and Shiv Sena Nepal, the latter which has links with the militant Shiv Sena of India and which demands a Hindu state without embracing violence - the NDA’s movement was from the onset a covert one bent on violence as a means to an end.

It made its debut with ‘warnings’ in the form of bombs thrown at the Maoists’ party office in the capital during a meeting of major parties and in front of parliament when the monarchy was abolished.

However, the church, which has borne the brunt of the group’s attacks, says that money, not only ideology, is a motivating force behind the attacks.

“Church officials have been receiving extortion calls from the NDA,” says Father Lawrence Maniyar, whose Nepal Jesuit Society runs the Catholic churches in Nepal. “While the Catholic churches have refused to pay, there are reports of smaller Protestant churches outside Kathmandu, where the security is far less, raising money to appease them.”

A few months before Father John’s murder, Maniyar had a quiet meeting with the NDA’s Mainali after the extortion calls increased.

“He told me that Nepal was meant for Hindus,” Maniyar told ISN Security Watch. “Christians and Muslims should leave. I found him quite determined.”

On 2 June, nine days after the blast in the Assumption Church, police arrested a 27-year-old woman. Sita Thapa was identified by Joseph and others as the woman who had left her hand bag in the prayer hall on that fateful day, walking out without it under the pretext of using the restroom.

“Thapa confessed that she belongs to a group called the Hindu Rastra Bachao Samiti [Save the Hindu Nation] and was motivated by the NDA,” police Deputy Inspector-General Binod Singh told ISN Security Watch. “We are now looking for Mainali as well as a couple of other accomplices.”

Controlling the menace

The investigation is being watched closely by Christians and Muslims alike.

“The NDA does not appear to be a big group,” says Nazrul Hasan, president of the Islamic Sangh, one of the prominent Muslim associations pressuring the government to provide security to mosques and churches.

“It is obviously trying to take advantage of the fragile political situation. But if the police act responsibly, the menace can be controlled. However, we need a strong government for that.”

With the fall of the Maoist government last month, Nepal is in the grips of a growing political crisis. The new communist-led coalition of Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal is grappling with dissent in its own ranks as well as among its allies. More than a fortnight after being sworn in, Prime Minister Nepal has been unable to expand his 11-member cabinet or allocate ministries, while one of his allies says it has withdrawn support.

In addition, the new prime minister also faces continuous protests from the Maoists, who have kept parliament obstructed since last month and called a succession of general strikes.

Meanwhile, police say they have increased surveillance at the “vulnerable” mosques and churches, while the institutions themselves are also adopting security measures.

“No one can just walk in any more,” says Chirendra Satyal, media officer at the Assumption Church. “Cars have to be parked outside and bags have to be left at the gate. New visitors are now required to sign a guest register.”

“The main Kathmandu mosques are employing security guards,” says Hasan. “Parking lots and entrances are being watched. But such measures are possible only in the capital. In the villages, where the mosques are tiny, they can’t afford them. Unless we have a strong government, there can be no law and order.”

Nepal’s first Protestant bishop, Father Narayan Sharma of the Believers’ Church, echoes these sentiments.

“Significantly, the church blast, which is the NDA’s biggest attack so far, occurred 19 days after the Maoist government collapsed,” Sharma told ISN Security Watch. “With the Maoists advocating secularism, the NDA did not dare approach the capital. Its attacks were confined to the border areas, where it probably has the support of pro-Hindu militant groups from north India across the border.

“It is vain to ask the new government for protection; it is so weak, it can’t even protect itself.”