Survival of the censored

The heavens cannot howl.
We can scream under the skies.
Inside us, 
Can we hear someone wail?
– Diwik Ramesh in Poora Aadamee

It was one of those events that happen only in Southasia. Khila Nath Dhakal, a reporter with the Nagarik daily based in Biratnagar, an industrial town in eastern Nepal, did an exposé on the business-crime nexus flourishing under the patronage of one Parshuram Basnet, a local gangster associated with the youth wing of the ruling Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist). He sent out a few of hooligans to rough up the scribe, who managed to flee and survive a merciless beating but then decided to file a complaint with the local police. What followed has twisted the case into multiple knots.

Home Minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara had to seek the permission of Prime Minister Jhala Nath Khanal, CPN (UML)'s chairman, to issue instructions to the police to apprehend Basnet, who remained at large despite countrywide protests by journalists for his prosecution. Last heard, the cabbie-turned-billionaire was holding press conferences from unknown locations claiming that he was in constant touch with his party. Meanwhile, his parent organisation, the Youth Force affiliated to the CPN (UML), held violent demonstrations torching government vehicles in Kathmandu and stoning school buses full of children in Biratnagar, resulting in the imposition of prohibitory orders for two days in mid-June.