On September 9, protestors set fire to the ancestral home of former education minister Raghuji Panta.
After the arson attack, former minister Panta and the families of his two brothers have been rendered homeless.
The Panta brothers’ families had been living in their ancestral home at Bijeshwari in Swayambhu, Kathmandu. They lived on separate floors with individual kitchens. As Raghuji was involved in politics, he used two floors of the four-story house, while the families of his younger brother Atmaji and youngest brother Prabhuji lived on the other two floors.
Raghuji is the eldest of five brothers. The second eldest lives separately. The third brother, Atmaji, is a retired teacher, while the youngest, Prabhuji, is a practicing lawyer. The other two brothers are abroad.
After the protestors set fire to the house, none of them have been able to return home.
“The house was built by our father in 1986,” Raghuji said. “Now we’ve become homeless.”
He said that the protestors initially looted the house and later poured petrol to set it on fire.
“There were books and some old documents in the house,” he said. “They contained details of historical events. Everything has turned to ashes.”
Prabhuji, Raghuji’s brother, said that they became targets of the protests despite belonging to an ordinary family.
“We didn’t grow up in luxury,” he said. “We couldn’t even afford to put tiles or marble in the house built by our father.”
He mentioned that neighbors managed to save a few pieces of clothing.
“I don’t think my elder brother has done anything wrong by joining politics,” Prabhuji said. “After he became minister, I never set foot in the ministry or asked him to do any favors.”
Neighbors said that some kitchen items remain intact, but he lacks the courage to return to the burnt house, he added.
Prabhuji also said that the government failed to provide adequate security during the Gen Z protests on September 8. “During the teachers' movement, so many police were deployed. Now, even when tens of thousands of people came out to protest, they didn't pay attention,” Prabhuji said, “It seems as if attempts were made ‘to bring back someone’ in the name of the movement.”
He said that since even the homes of former mayors who did not hold any public office were set on fire, it indicated the possibility of such a motive.
He believes those in power failed to gather and analyze information effectively.
According to Prabhuji, the families of the three brothers are now scattered after their ancestral house was destroyed in the arson attack. “Raghu dai is staying at a sister’s house, the third brother is at his in-laws’, and I’m at another brother’s place,” he said. “No one feels like going back to the burnt house.”
