KATMANDU: After battling Hindu devotees and the apex court for nearly two weeks over the Pashupatinath temple that saw violence and an unseemly dispute over the removal of its Indian priests, Nepal’s Maoist Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda yesterday finally succumbed to the rising pressure and pledged to cancel all controversial decisions taken about the shrine.
Addressing the interim Parliament yesterday, after a three-week deadlock with the other parliamentary parties was finally lifted through negotiations, the Maoist chief said that all controversial decisions made by the Pashupatinath Area Development Trust, that governs the 17th century shrine, would be withdrawn.
Prachanda said that in his capacity as patron of the trust, he was also pledging that the four Indian priests, who had submitted their resignations, would be asked to continue till new priests were appointed.
The capitulation came after an escalating public row triggered by the ouster of the Indian priests, allegedly after intimidation by Maoist cadres. The trust, now controlled by the Maoists, departed from a nearly 300-year-old tradition that had seen only priests from south India appointed at the temple, and appointed Nepali priests.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Nepalese girls, rescued after being sold off by their poor parents as domestic help, marched in Katmandu on Tuesday demanding rehabilitation like jobs and an education, activists said. Traditionally, girls as young as six or seven from the ethnic Tharu community in five districts of west Nepal were “sold” by their parents for as little as 1,500 Nepalese rupees ($20).
The girls, known as kamlaris or indentured laborers, are often taken away by middlemen and made to work for about 20 hours a day as domestic help in cities or towns without any pay.
The government banned the system eight years ago and charities have so far freed 5,000 such girls. About 400 took part in Tuesday’s protest in Katmandu.
