Nepal Gen-Z Protest: Pilgrims From Madhya Pradesh Witnesses Violence Unfold In Kathmandu With Fear, Horror

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): A group of pilgrims from Madhya Pradesh shouted ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ as their bus entered India from Nepal on Wednesday evening.

Back in India, they were feeling relieved and happy. Theirs was the first vehicle to enter India after the violence broke out in Kathmandu.

They witnessed killings, arson and firing in Kathmandu from the noon of September 9 till the early morning of September 10, when the army arrived and brought the situation under control.

The group included 22 pilgrims from Madhya Pradesh and 13 from Rajasthan. Adding five employees of the travel agency that had arranged the tour, they were a total of 40 people.

Their 16-day tour began from Varanasi on September 3 and after visiting Ayodhya and Prayagraj, they crossed into Nepal on the morning of September 8, reaching Kathmandu the same evening.

“Our hotel was across the road from the main entrance to the Pashupatinath Temple,” said 61-year-old Sangeeta Badal, a retired professor of commerce from Indore, who was on the bus. She, along with her friend Sarojini Agarwal, a retired Hindi professor, had boarded a train to Varanasi from Bhopal on the night of September 2.

Sangeeta said that though disturbances had begun on September 8 itself, they could have a darshan of Pashupatinath Temple early in the morning of September 9 and reach their hotel safely. “Soon after, a mob of young men and women set a police station ablaze.

Policemen opened fire and then the situation became uncontrolled,” she said, adding that she and others of the group watched the violence unfold from the windows of their hotel rooms. “Though we were safe as our hotel had a high boundary wall and the management had locked the main gate, we could not sleep the whole night,” she adds.

A 65-year-old retired deputy director, horticulture, from Gwalior, Suresh Singh Kushwah, said that the mob was only targeting government properties. “Our bus was parked outside the hotel but they did not touch it,” he said, adding that “we saw bodies being carried in ambulances and even on bikes. We all were very terrified because we did not know what turn the situation may take.”

Sarojini (67) from Sagar, described the scene in Kathmandu as ‘horrific’. “I was surprised to find a large number of women indulging in violence,” she said.

NP Yadav (72), a retired government employee from Narsinghpur, said that they were fearful that if the situation turned anarchic, they may be caught in the violence. The protestors, however, were only attacking government properties and functionaries, he said, adding that they were not harming the tourists or even the local residents.

The group departed from Kathmandu in the wee hours of September 10 but was stopped at Chitvan, about 180 km away. They spent time in a temple till they were allowed to proceed. “We crossed into Bihar at around 7.30 pm and you can’t believe how happy and relieved we felt,” said Sarojini. They reached Gaya Ji in Bihar on Thursday morning. They will next travel to Baidhyanath Dham in Jharkhand, Gangasagar in West Bengal and Jagannath Puri in Odisha and will be back in Bhopal on September 18.