A ‘Black Day’ is being marked nationwide today in protest of the extermination of the first people-elected government and parliament on the backup of the then Royal Nepali Army. The then King Mahendra had arrested and imprisoned several popular leaders including the first people-elected Prime Minister of Nepal B P Koirala and introduced the party-less Panchayat Political System in the country nearly six and a half decades ago.

Popular leader BP Koirala and other leaders were arrested while they were attending a programme organized by Nepal Tarun Dal, the youth wing of the Nepali Congress, and imprisoned for three months in Singha Durbar and then in Sundarijal. Leaders including BP were detained within the high-rise walls at the quarter of a senior Nepal Army official in Sundarijal. B P Koirala authored various literary books such as ‘Atmakatha’, ‘Atmabritanta’, ‘Hitler Ra Yahudi’, ‘Doshi Chasma’, and many short fiction during his jail life in Sundarijal.

Along with B P Koirala, the then Speaker Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, ministers and party leaders Ganeshman Singh, Surya Prasad Upadhyay, Diwan Singh Rai, Ra Narayan Mishra and Yogendraman Sherchan were detained in Sundarijal following the coup orchestrated by the monarch on Push 1. Various organizations including Nepal Tarun Dal have been observing the day as a black move against democracy in the anal of the political history of Nepal. Today, the Nepali Congress and Nepal Tarun Dal are marking the black day by organizing several programs across the country.