Two weeks after the lifting of the emergency there isn't a sense that conditions have changed in any meaningful way. In large parts of the country just as there wasn't the expected qualitative difference in the security situation after 1 February, things are similarly unchanged post-1 May. There is an urgent need for a rethink, but the rumoured cabinet reshuffle is unlikely to change the ground reality.

The emergency has been lifted, but it's still an emergency. The media is under a shroud and the sword of the menacing 6 February directive is still hanging over its head. Politicians, lawyers, activists and journalists are under valley arrest, and the only way to find out whether one is on the list is to test it by trying to fly out and see what happens.

One fails to see how such bullying tactics helps the government in controlling dissent or earning support. The foolishly counter productive ban on news on radio actually exposes a deep sense of insecurity. Arbitrary detention, beatings and torture of innocent citizens by security forces on the flimsiest suspicions or faulty intelligence was rife during the emergency. We just couldn't report them.

Because of restrictions on information it is difficult to gauge details of battles like the one in Siraha on Tuesday night. There have been commando offensives like the one into the rebel stronghold of Thawang last month, but the Maoists and villagers had all fled by the time the army got there.

However, there is now a more virulent strain of violence. The murders of popular preacher Pandit Narayan Pokhrel and the execution style killing of Chitwan businessman and cinema producer Bhagwan Das Shrestha are indications that the assassinations are a part of a new Maoist campaign of terror.

Even more sinister is the spread of vigilante terror which is spinning out of control. The targeting by Nawalparasi vigilantes last month of anyone wearing a dhaka topi has ominous ethnic and communal overtones. The execution of six villagers in Pipal Danda of Sindhupalchok earlier this month was carried out by 13-14 year old lads.

What are these children going to grow up to be? Who is fishing in troubled waters in Nawalparasi? How much longer do we have to wait for a peace roadmap? Who benefits from this escalation? Unless we nip in the bud this drift from a class war into a caste war, the last nine years are going to look like a picnic.