Hundreds of people gathered at Baluwatar today morning to mark 100 days of the Occupy Baluwatar movement. It began as a campaign demanding justice for Sita, a  female migrant worker who was robbed and raped by immigration officials and has now snowballed into a larger platform calling on the government to put an end to gender violence and impunity.

The chants grew louder but with each passing day the victims demanding justice are becoming disillusioned by the state’s apathy. “What are we supposed to do now except waiting,” said Sita’s father who is enraged by the dillydallying.  While police constable Parsuram Ram Basnet and Somnath Khanal of Department of Immigration (DoI) have been arrested, section officers Tika Pokhrel and Ram Prasad Koirala involved in the robbery are still on the run.  Director General Suresh Adhikari and Director Lekh Raj Pokhrel of DoI were also implicated in the case and since then have been transferred from the DoI. No action has been taken against them.

Similarly, the case of Chhori Maiya Maharjan who has been missing for more than a year now also remains in limbo. Despite continuous pressure the police hasn’t been able to arrest the accused or take the investigation forward. The organisers of Occupy Baluwatar along with the victims have been demanding that the Ministry of Home Affairs make public the status of the departmental inquiry.