Jhapa - Families bereaved by the insurgency are urging both the state and the Maoists not to feed off revenge and work towards peace. "It's time to come to the table and start the peace talks," was the message that most widows and mothers want spread across the country. "The Maoists should stop their violent politics and the government must avoid thinking that they can control the rebels by force," says one of the victims' parents. "If they go on killing each other, how will we ever have peace?" asks Yamuna Acharya, the widow of prolific writer Deb Kumari Acharya, who was arrested and brutally killed at the Charali army barrack. Her husband was not a Maoist and all he did was to raise his voice against the killings of unarmed civilians. "I don't want others to suffer the way my husband did," adds Yamuna, a student at Kakaribhitta Campus, who saw her husband killed before her eyes. "I obviously want revenge but I try to control it because it won't benefit anyone."

"People should stop the game of one Nepali killing another Nepali," says Hem Kumari Bhattarai from Budhabare whose two sons were killed by the Maoists. "My sons are no more and our family has been uprooted. I wish I were dead too." The Maoists dragged her son Balbhadra, a staff of National Research Department, out of the Osho Meditation Camp and shot him.