Nepal’s former Chief Justice, Sushila Karki, has been named the country’s interim prime minister following deadly protests this week that k!lled at least 51 people and injured more than 1,300.
On Friday, President Ramchandra Paudel’s office announced the appointment of Karki, the country’s first female head of government.
The 73-year-old, the only woman to have served as chief justice of Nepal’s Supreme Court, was shortly sworn in.
“She is a credible choice to lead the interim government,” Anil Kumar Sinha, a former justice of the Supreme Court who worked with Karki, told AFP.
“Her integrity has never been in doubt, and she is not someone who can be intimidated or easily influenced. She is courageous and not swayed by pressure.”
Police spokesperson Binod Ghimire said on Friday that those k!lled so far this week included 21 protesters, nine prisoners, three police officers, and 18 others, without elaborating. Another 1,300 people were injured as police fought to control crowds.
Ghimire added that more than 12,500 prisoners who escaped from multiple jails countrywide remain on the run. “About 13,500 prisoners had escaped, some have been recaptured, 12,533 are still at large.”
The dead included prisoners killed during or after their escape in clashes with Nepalese security forces.
Some of the fugitives have reportedly tried to cross into India, where scores have been apprehended by Indian border forces.
Nepal’s army, which has imposed a curfew, said that it had recovered more than 100 guns looted in the turmoil, with some protesters seen brandishing automatic rifles.
“They [Gen Z] want [Karki]. This will happen today,” a constitutional expert consulted by Paudel and Sigdel, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters news agency before the announcement.
Born in 1952 in Biratnagar, an industrial town in eastern Nepal, she earned degrees in political science in India and in law in Kathmandu.
She began her career as a lawyer in 1979, and quickly gained a reputation as a fearless advocate, often taking up cases others avoided.
In 2012, Karki was one of two presiding Supreme Court judges who jailed a serving government minister for corruption, a first at the time for Nepal in its battle against a culture of graft.
In 2017, the government tried to impeach her as chief justice after she overturned its choice for chief of police.
The United Nations called the impeachment “politically motivated” and the move was blocked. She stepped down from the post at her retirement.
