Bomjan thrashing nine shepherds continuously for twenty hours in 2010

As Bomjon’s attack on the 17 Madeshi men of Manarhawa happened just two months before this case in 2010, the story of the 9 shepherds continuously beaten for 20 hours to blood by him and his brutal monks, had not even been published in English. Yet, why should we consider the fate of illiterate and vulnerable Nepali villagers ,who are unable to stand up for their rights, less important?

It is heartbreaking that in Nepal only the rich and influential have a right for justice and law, and poor villagers from the area must stay silent and live in fear from Bomjon’s local followers all their lives. In fact, local victims of Bomjon are afraid also from the police, because it had been regularly bribed by Bomjon’s followers, those times mainly by Piluwa’s “mafia king” Jas Bahadur Waiba, whose own son Uttam worked in the local Bhadrakali APF (Armed Police Forces) Camp at Halkhoriya.

(Scroll down a few paragraphs till the second title to find the case ⇓ )

The 17 Madeshi’s case:BBC: Nepal’s ‘Buddha boy’ investigated for attacking group

Police corruption in Bomjon’s crime cases had been proved to me from an unexpected source: directly from a relative of Bomjon, who told me that the case when he abducted his own family members and kept torturing them for 5 days, had been cancelled after the police chief called Bomjon’s “gray eminence” Jas Bahadur Waiba, asking him how much he offered if the case got closed. The offer then (2012) was a mere 70 000 Nepali Rupees. Multiplied by around 40 Bomjon-cases over the last 12 years, it is clear that the police is getting a pleasantly regular additional income from Bomjon…(The above amount would be ridiculous nowadays for a bribe. Currently the trend is one or two zeros more).

Featured image: Bomjon politely “questioned” by fearful and superstitious policemen, after the police complaint by his 2010 victims. He had been never interrogated or punished. Source: Prateek Daily, Nijgadh, Bara District. 

Similarly as in the case of all of his victims, Bomjon picks up the most vulnerable people, who cannot defend themselves and are too poor to arrange justice for themselves in the painfully corrupt Nepal! The Guro caste, to which the shepherds belonged, is considered a low caste in Nepal, similarly as the Madeshis, whom he had attacked earlier that year (2010)…

Introduction

(If you wish to jump to the case itself, scroll down till its title ⇓)

When I was still Bomjon’s supporter, I thought, what a good thing, he gets extra protection by Jas Waiba’s police contacts and his big money. We (foreigners) had been kept in lies that Bomjon was himself a victim of local disturbers and aggressors, who, as Waiba explained, were “jealous” of his spiritual powers and achievements…

This distortion of truth went so far that, even if we had learned about the attack on the 17 Madeshi men in 2010 (I was the Google Groups’s manager!), we had condemned those men, instead of their attackers. Bomjon’s Nepali followers officially calling themselves Bodhi Shrawan Dharma Sangha now, had painted us a false picture of 17 Madeshi men attacking the innocent meditator, who allegedly took control of them all all by himself (in their media interviews they use this legend as a way to display Bomjon as a superhero as from some Rambo film, and lead his followers to forget about  the physical suffering those men had to endure).

The truth is (easily found in Nepali media), Bomjon had never took control of them alone, but locked them up in a jungle hut by the help of his monks and civil followers, where they all had been beating the men easily because they considered Bomjon a divine guru and, as they had admitted to the media, at first they had voluntarily humbled themselves to him.

I started to have more doubts about these strange stories of alleged disturbers and attackers of the young Buddha Boy when Jas Waiba had explained to me, that the Spanish woman, who lived in his house before being kidnapped by his guru Bomjon (!), was also a witch and wanted to challenge Guruji (Bomjon)! Waiba used this word, “challenge” and this was so unusual for me, that I remember I was asking him more and more on that “witch” foreign woman, as something was fishy in that all…

Being myself from Europe, knowing well how many Europeans look at India and Nepal as a spiritual heaven, and how many of us, Bomjon’s supporters, sold everything just to be able to buy a plane ticket for Nepal, the story about a Spanish woman traveling so far to Nepal just to “magically challenge” Bomjon, and “compete with his psychic powers”, was difficult for me to believe…

Yet my main connection to this sudden mysterious universe of Bomjon and his cult, Japanese-US Andrea Good, who was also behind inviting me to Nepal, had confirmed me that exactly that was the case, and somehow convinced me that the Spanish woman was, in the least, a “daring disturber,” “mentally ill”, a “sexual predator” or any kind of enemy facing the innocent meditating teenager in the jungle….

Andrea Good had even included the story of Bomjon’s Spanish victim as an interesting element in her book Reflections on Palden Dorje (later Reflections on Dharma Sangha and Reflections on Maha Sambodhi Dharma Sangha). No mention of any sign of pity or bad conscience for causing bodily harm and apparently terror to the foreign tourist…

 

We had just hushed her story away, as we have never met her, her case was whispered around villages and told aloud insider circles as a warning, but as we were so enchanted by Bomjon’s holy aura, we were certain he would not really harm anyone. How could I know then, back in the summer of 2011, that less than a year later I myself would be kidnapped and held by Bomjon and his gang, in the very same manner as that unfortunate disappeared Spanish woman was in 2007…?

So what I have learned from Bomjon during the time I know him, is a single thing: never say never (never think it can not happen to you!). Never dismiss or ignore the suffering of any of Bomjon’s victims, be it someone you have never met, someone you did not like or someone not important to you! Because at one point you will be in the same situation!

Thus, in great respect to the “additional unknown martyrs” of the Nepali Government’s refusal of justice, I wish to bring their plight to the English speaking public here. With a delay of 9 years! As even the Nepali media is so powerfully self-censoring itself, that one can practically hardly dig this old case up from the Internet, even in Nepali language.

Tapasvi Bomjon took into captivity 9 shepherds, ordering his men to beat them continuously for 20 hours, before releasing them

“8 September, 2010, Jitlal Shreshtha, Nijgadh (Prateek Daily)

Bomjon, who is said to have been meditating without food, had been surrounded with a lot of controversy in recent years. Tapasvi Bomjon had now captured 9 shepherds, keeping them locked up 20 hours. The shepherds left their houses yesterday morning, on Tuesday, to graze their cattle in the jungle, before Tapasvi Bomjon had abducted them (together with his followers) at around 3 PM that day. He let them go only today. He claimed that they had entered a forbidden area, which Bomjon had banned (for any outsiders) to enter, and so he had locked them up in a hut in “his” jungle area.

The secretary of the public Forest Users Community, Jagjivan Kamuvara, told (Prateek Daily) that the captives were from Ratanpuri 1 and 2, Bara District, and that some of the men included in the group were Rohit Guro, Harani Guro, Sanu Harani Guro, Thulo Harani Guro, Deviya Guro, Rameshwor Guro and Vital Lal Kunwar. There were 4 women among the shepherds held by Bomjon. Bomjon’s Committee chairman (Nil Bahadur) Thing said that the shepherds had entered Bomjon’s forbidden area damaging the barbed-wire fence together with their cattle, and that there had been 6-7 people more of them but those had managed to escape back to their village. He claimed that they had taken away two khukuris (knives) and two sticks from the shepherds (Note of this website: it is normal for shepherds in Nepal to carry khukuris (knives), sticks for all-day grazing in jungles).

Earlier this year, Bomjon had similarly abducted 17 Madeshi villagers from Manarhawa VDC (Village Development Committee) and tortured them (all night). Although there had been already 6 such incidents in Ram Bomjon’s self-proclaimed “banned jungle area” till today (2010), and despite police reports placed by the victims, the police continues to be passive and silent.” (Translated by Mareechi)

I am copying below the Nepali version, to avoid Nepal’s Government censorship, which tries to delete as many negative news from the Internet about Ram Bomjon, as they can, over the last 12 years. The Nepali Government and leading party chiefs had been supporting Bomjon against his victims from 2007 till today.

तपस्वी बम्जनद्वारा नियन्त्रणमा लिएर कुट्ने क्रमलाई निरन्तरता नौजना गोठालाहरू बीस घण्टा थुनिएपश्चात् छुटे

(Archive.org and Archive.today)

जीतलाल श्रेष्ठ, निजगढ, २३ भदौ/
निराहार तपस्यामा लीन भएको भन्दै केही वर्षअघि र्सवाधिक चर्चामा रहेका तपस्वी रामबहादुर बम्जन हालका दिनमा निरन्तर विवादमा आइरहेका छन्। तपस्वी बम्जनले पछिल्लोपटक   नौजना गोठालाहरूलाई नियन्त्रण लिएर  बीस घण्टापछि छाडेको घटनाले पुनः विवादमा आएका हुन। हिजो मङगलवार बिहान घरबाट गाईवस्तु लिएर जङगल गएका  गोठालाहरूलाई तपस्वी बम्जनले दिउंसो ३ बजेतिर नियन्त्रणमा लिएर आज कागज गरी छाडेका छन्।  आफूले निषेध गरेको क्षेत्रभित्र प्रवेश गरेको भन्दै तपस्वी रामबहादुर बम्जनले उनीहरूलाई बन्धक बनाएका थिए।  बारा रतनपुरी १ र २ का रोहित गुरो, हरानी गुरो, सानो हरानी गुरो, ठूलो हरानी गुरो, देविया गुरो, रामेश्वर गुरो, व्रतलाल कुंवरलगायत नौजना रहेको स्थानीय जनमुखी सामुदायिक वन उपभोक्ता समूहका अध्यक्ष जगजीवन कंुवरले बताए। पक्राउ पर्नेमा चारजना महिलासमेत थिए। कांडे तारवारलाई भत्काउंदै निषेधित क्षेत्रमा गाईगोरु वस्तुहरूलाई पसाएपछि अन्य ६, ७ जना भने भागेका र नौजनालाई मात्र नियन्त्रणमा लिइएको अध्यक्ष थिङले बताए। पक्राउ परेकाबाट दुइवटा खुकुरी, लठीसमेत बरामद भएको बताइएको छ।
तपस्वीले यसअघि मनहर्वा गाविसका १७ जना गाउंलेलाई नियन्त्रणमा लिएर यातना दिएका थिए। तपस्वी आफूले निषेध गरेको क्षेत्रमा प्रवेश गरेको बहानामा हालसम्म छैठौं घटना गरेपनि प्रहरी प्रशासन उजुरीका बावजुद चुप लागेर बसेको छ।

A video I had made about the incident, with explanations and photos about local shepherds’ reasons to visit Halkhoriya Jungle: