Prithvi Narayan Shah's statue reinstatement committee members have started a relay hunger strike in Pokhara from today demanding the reinstatement of late king Prithvi Narayan Shah's statue at Prithvichowk, in recognition of his contribution..
The committee will continue the strike till December 6. “If our demand is not met by then, we will have to resort to stronger form of agitation,” said committee coordinator Shankar Kharal..
In the first phase of the strike, Dil Bahadur Chhetri, Padma Bahadur Karki, former lawmaker Krishna Kumari Pariyar, Ram Prasad Bastakoti, Dil Bahadur Adhikari, Puja Shah, Tankanath Baral, Ruku Pariyar and Kritika Pariyar are staging the hunger strike at the main gate of Pokhara-Lekhnath metropolis. Former lawmaker and industrialist Surya Bahadur KC had launched the strike today..
Shah's statue was demolished by agitators during the second people's movement about a decade ago and later on, a statute of martyr Lakhan Thapa was instaled there by Magar Sangh. However, the statue was later removed citing problems of traffic management, which was resented by the Magar community. .
Thus, Pokhara sub-metropolis and district administration decided to rebuild the statue. This move of the administration and sub-metropolis was again protested by other people of the locality, who announced various protest programmes against the move..
Earlier, representatives of various organisations had submitted a memo to the administration, and filed a case with the court seeking reinstatement of late king Shah's statue..