New Delhi, March 30 (IANS) Since the arrest of former Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli and his then colleague, ex-Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak, for their reported role in the September 2025 firing that left many dead in Kathmandu, mixed reactions have been coming from the Himalayan nation over administrative exercise and intent. 

Pressure had been building ever since a probe agency submitted its findings and recommendations to the interim government on March 8. There were growing calls to make the report public. However, the then administration is understood to have deferred the decision, preferring that the incoming Prime Minister and cabinet take a call on the matter.

Even so, excerpts from the nearly 1,000-page report began appearing in sections of Nepal’s media, prompting the interim government to consider releasing it just days before the new government was sworn in.

However, according to a report in The Kathmandu Post on Sunday, “The Gen Z uprising probe report on which these arrests were based has yet to be made public. The arrests also appeared selective, with other top security officials named in the report spared.”

The report further said, “The proper way would have been to first make the report public, after which the police could have taken the case against the two politicians to court. Instead, the hasty arrests have fuelled suspicions that the new government could use its supermajority to target its opponents.”

Incidentally, both Nepal and Bangladesh saw new democratically elected governments emerge after youth-led protests over alleged misrule, though the course of events differed in the two countries, both neighbours of India.

In Nepal, a new government took office after youth-led protests over alleged misgovernance. K.P. Sharma Oli, though ousted, participated in the electoral process but lost to incumbent Balendra Shah. In contrast, in Bangladesh, former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled the country amid unrest, and a court later awarded her the death sentence over alleged atrocities. Her party, the Awami League, has since been barred from political activity.

Without drawing direct parallels, the article urged caution on the part of Nepal’s new leadership.

“We hope that the new government – on which people have pinned such high hopes – acts with more caution in the future, including the cases of Oli and Lekhak. This is vital to delivering justice to the families of those who were killed during the Gen Z uprising, which is one of the government’s justifications for the arrests. All those who were involved in the brutal suppression of peaceful protests on September 8 last year must be brought to book,” it said.

“Yet if the government is seen to be selectively targeting a few people while sparing others implicated in suppressing the uprising, the legitimacy of the whole process of prosecution and justice-delivery to victim families, starting with the formation of the Gauri Bahadur Karki-led commission last year, will come into question,” it stressed.

While a similar crackdown by law enforcement agencies in Bangladesh had led to the deaths of several protesters, followed by mob violence and attacks on Awami League members and minority Hindus, no comparable incidents of retaliatory violence have been reported in Nepal under the interim government.

The article also noted the reform promises of Nepal’s new administration, highlighting “a 100-point reform agenda that ranges from boosting the flagging economy to reducing politicisation of universities and bureaucracy.”

It observed, “If even half the pledges are implemented, Nepal will be a much better place to live and work in. Moreover, the new Shah government seems intent on making a strong start so that people can immediately feel the change.”

“With its mandate, the government has a chance to work wonders for the country. It should not let that mandate go to waste by getting embroiled in such distractions that could easily have been avoided,” the piece opined.

--IANS