In 2008, as Nepal was preparing for its first-ever Constituent Assembly elections, a bomb exploded on the eve of the polls in what was then the Rajpur Phardawa Village Development Committee of Rautahat district, rocking the entire country. Reportedly, the blast in a shed left many injured. Soon after, in order to kill eyewitnesses to the blast, some survivors were allegedly thrown into the furnace of a nearby brick kiln and burned alive. The supposed architect of the murders was a leader of the Nepali Congress and also a former minister, Mohammad Aftab Alam. In a bid to win the elections and instill fear in order to take hold of booths, he had allegedly gotten some people to make bombs. Even as the family of the victims filed a case against him following the incident, the Office of the Attorney General decided against their plea.

Nonetheless, the case reopened in 2012 when the Supreme Court ordered its prosecution. Alam and his associates were charged not only with ‘attempted murder’ and ‘possessing and transporting explosive materials’ but also ‘destroying evidence’. The police arrested them in 2019 and kept them in custody at Nakkhu jail, Lalitpur. It was only last year, a decade after the incident, that the Rautahat District Court sentenced the convicts to life imprisonment, offering a sense of justice to the family of the victims. However, on Wednesday, the eve of this year’s Republic Day, citing insufficient evidence against them, the Janakpur High Court ordered the inmates’ immediate release, setting Alam free. This decision has not only eroded victims’ trust in the judiciary but also raised several questions over political interference and bias—an all-too-common feature of high-profile cases in the country.

Soon after the 2008 incident, Alam was elected from the Rautahat constituency-2. Even though he lost the second CA elections in 2013, he was victorious in the 2017 legislative elections. Justice was denied and delayed for the family of the victims for almost a decade due to fear-mongering and threats. As noted in a report by Advocacy Forum, “This case starkly illustrates the criminalization of politics and the politicization of crimes”. Rightly so.

The high court’s decision to repeal the district court’s orders appears to rely heavily on the technicality of the evidence rather than on other circumstantial aspects. This sets a dangerous precedent. In a case as grave as this, it is also vital that the victims’ families—and the broader public—feel justice has been served. A victim-centric approach in justice delivery is a must. It is incumbent on justice providers to display enough sensitivity in a case in which the Supreme Court in 2012 ordered prosecution. Plus, in this case, it is unwise to rule out the district court’s findings, given the gravity of the allegations and Alam’s prior conviction.

Although the victims are now living in fear, their hope for justice isn’t entirely lost. The victims as well as the government attorney can still appeal to the Supreme Court, which has the chance to correct the course of the case if evidence points against the guilty. If justice is denied without sound legal justification, as has been the case in multiple such cases in the recent past, the public’s faith in the judicial process will further erode.