One dead, dozens hurt as Nepal police open fire on communal clash in India-bordering Sunsari, indefinite curfew clamped

New Delhi: A young man was killed and more than a dozen others, including several police personnel, were injured after Nepal Police opened fire to disperse a communal clash in Sunsari district on the Indian border, prompting the district administration to impose an indefinite curfew across five market areas from Monday morning. The violence broke out around 10.15pm on Sunday.

According to Nepalese media reports, the violent clash took place in Kaptanganj, in Ward 3 of Dewanganj rural municipality – also named as “Devgunj” in some reports – after a group of Hindu youths carrying a DJ sound system, en route to the Koshi River to offer water as part of the Bolbam pilgrimage marking Shrawan Monday, was asked by local residents to lower the volume. The area is predominantly Muslim, and the request over noise quickly turned into a wider confrontation, with accounts differing on whether the display of religious flags was an additional flashpoint.

What began as a verbal exchange escalated into stone-pelting and clashes between the two groups. Nepalese police, including armed police units rushed to the spot but were unable to immediately restore order. Officers first used tear gas and fired warning shots; when the crowd failed to disperse, they opened live fire, according to police accounts collated from local reports.

The man killed has been identified as Om Prakash Mehta, a resident of Kaptanganj, Dewanganj-3. Most Indian media reports, citing police, put his age at 24, although at least two Nepali publications have reported him as 30 – a discrepancy yet to be officially clarified. He died from a bullet wound while being taken to hospital in Biratnagar. Another local youth, 20-year-old JayaPrakash Mehta, was reported to be seriously injured and undergoing treatment at a hospital in Biratnagar.

The figure of those injured have varied across accounts, with the toll given as anywhere between 12 and 24, including five to eight armed police personnel. The injured are being treated at Neuro Hospital and Birat Nursing Home in Biratnagar.

To prevent a recurrence, authorities scrambled 211 Nepal Police personnel and a further 165 armed police force personnel, drawn from units across Koshi province, to Sunsari. The Sunsari chief district officer, Basudev Ghimire, issued a curfew order at 12.30am on Monday, covering five market areas across Dewanganj and Harinagar rural municipalities, effective from 7am. The order, which will remain in force until further notice, bars gatherings of more than four people, along with rallies, demonstrations, public meetings and sit-ins. Violators face a fine of NPR 500, up to a month’s imprisonment, or both.

By Monday morning, the two communities had been separated and the situation was reported calm, with heavy security deployed across the affected belt. The Sunsari district security committee held an emergency meeting after the incident and decided to further tighten security; talks with representatives of both communities are said to be under way to defuse tensions.

Sunsari, in southeastern Nepal’s Koshi province, shares a long and porous border with India’s Bihar and serves as a significant transit and trade corridor between the two countries – a factor that gives any breakdown of law and order in the district an added dimension for New Delhi, given the free movement of people permitted under the 1950 Indo-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship. Communal flashpoints during religious processions, particularly involving loudspeakers, are not new to the Nepal Tarai belt, which shares deep social and cultural linkages with adjoining districts of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.