International observers will be watching Nepal closely on Wednesday for any additional use of force by the domestic security forces, two days after they began firing on antigovernment protesters, leaving at least 22 people dead and hundreds injured.
The majority of victims were killed on Monday, after security forces fired live ammunition, rubber bullets and water cannons into crowds of young demonstrators.
Security forces were largely absent during the day on Tuesday. But by early Wednesday morning, Nepali Army soldiers and heavily-armed police officers were deployed in the streets of Kathmandu, the country’s capital, encircling groups of protesters and raising fears of another deadly crackdown.
The army said in a statement that it intended to assume responsibility for law and order starting at 10 p.m. Tuesday. It called upon citizens to cease all acts of arson and looting. In formal language, the army’s high command promised that its troops would take to the streets to protect the country’s public and private properties.
The actions of the Nepali security forces have drawn condemnation from human rights groups. The United Nations human rights office said it was “shocked” by the killing of protesters and demanded a prompt investigation. The U.N.’s office in Nepal also warned the authorities that all law enforcement responses must remain “in line with international human rights standards.”
Among the leaders who have resigned since the protests began was the home minister, Ramesh Lekhak, who said he took moral responsibility for Monday’s deadly crackdown.
Poverty rates have plummeted over the past three decades in Nepal, as the young democracy emerged from a civil war that lasted from 1996 to 2006. But many Nepalis, including the protesters out on the streets this week, are angry about a small number of elite Nepalis accumulating vast wealth for their children.
Experts say that, just as corruption among Nepal’s leaders has often gone unchecked, the country’s security forces have often been allowed to act with impunity.
Historically in Nepal, “there is very much an expectation that security forces will break the law,” said Rumela Sen, a lecturer at Columbia University whose research focuses on political violence in South Asia.
“The general understanding is that if you get into any kind of confrontation with anybody who is remotely associated with the army, there is no chance for the common man to escape that encounter without being harmed,” Ms. Sen said.
“The fear of uniform,” she added, “is deeply ingrained.”
Much of that fear dates back to the civil war, when security forces were accused of using brutal tactics against a Maoist insurgency and of carrying out enforced disappearances, for which human rights groups say there has been little accountability.
Security forces, including the Nepali police, “have always only been held accountable to their political masters,” said Ramesh Shrestha, a researcher who has studied youth-led political violence in Nepal. “These people have always been protected.”
If the Nepali government fails to hold its forces responsible for the most recent killings, there should be broader consequences, said Meenakshi Ganguly, the deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. Nepal is the largest contributor of military and police personnel to U.N. peacekeeping operations — a relationship that should be reassessed unless Nepali leaders take “serious action,” Ms. Ganguly said.
But with the resignation of Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli on Tuesday, and with Parliament and the Supreme Court still ablaze as of Wednesday, it was unclear which leaders remained.
Anushka Patil is a Times reporter covering breaking and developing news around the world.
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