At a Nepali grocery store in Hicksville, concern over unrest roiling country

Customers were in a somber mood at a Nepali grocery store in Hicksville on Thursday as they reacted to ongoing political instability in Nepal.

What began as a youth-led anti-corruption protest in the capital Kathmandu earlier this week was met with a brutal police crackdown, followed by widespread rioting nationwide and the resignation of the country’s prime minister. On Friday, after Newsday spoke with local Nepali community members, a former judge was named the new interim Prime Minister until new elections can be held. The former judge, Sushila Karki, is Nepal's first female prime minister and has wide support from the anti-corruption protesters, according to The Associated Press.

Owner Bikram Khattri, 37, said he thinks there are at least 700 people of Nepali heritage in the Hicksville-Levittown area — a large enough customer base that he decided to open Himalayan Spice and Meat Shop, just off Newbridge Road, last year. There is also a Nepali restaurant, While in Kathmandu, in Glen Cove.

Besides foodstuffs, Khattri’s shelves are currently stocked with Nepali board games, flower garlands, and flags to celebrate the upcoming Hindu festival of Dashain, which is normally a joyous time of year. But right now, so much remains uncertain, he said.

“The conditions in Nepal are not good,” Khattri said in Nepali. “It’s good to get rid of corrupt officials — I support that. But not setting fire to parliament. That’s the people’s property.”

Nepal’s recent unrest began when thousands of youth, organizing under the banner of “Gen Z,” took to Kathmandu’s streets Monday to protest corruption and the government’s banning of major social media platforms, which they saw as a crackdown on free speech. Police opened fire, killing 17 protesters in a move that was internationally condemned. The death toll has since risen to at least 50 as mobs set fire to various politicians’ and government properties, as well as other businesses, according to The Associated Press. Videos went viral on social media — which was reinstated — showing rioters breaking into ministers’ homes and assaulting them and their family members. The Army has imposed a nationwide curfew on the country of 30 million people.

Though some American media have focused on the social media ban, the discontent behind the protests has deeper roots, according to Bishal Regmi, 28, of Hicksville, who has been communicating with friends back home.

Regmi said young people are upset with the major political parties who have ruled across a series of governments since a popular uprising ousted the country’s former king in 2006.

“Since I was a kid, we’ve had the same political leaders who … have been using corruption to enrich themselves,” he said in Nepali, adding that he wants transparency — not a return to monarchy.

Young people have fled to work as laborers elsewhere in Asia, the Middle East and Western countries, he said. “Then when we see Nepal’s political leaders flaunting their deluxe lives on social media, riding in Lamborghinis and Ferraris in Europe or the U.S. … it led to Gen Z’s frustration.”

Both Khattri and Regmi said they thought the people responsible for arson and violence were not the same youth who organized the original protest against corruption, and that the movement had become "infiltrated" by opportunists and criminals.

Hicksville resident Bed Prasad Kharel, 59, a retired journalist from Nepal, said he sympathizes with young Nepalis’ grievances, adding that he himself took part in youthful pro-democracy protests in 1990.

But he decried the destruction of national property and worries who will fill the power void after Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli resigned Tuesday. He said he fears a power grab by the Nepali military, the former king Gyanendra Shah or even India, Nepal’s southern neighbor.

So far, Nepal's security forces have said they have mobilized to preserve law and order.

“We need to conserve democracy,” Kharel said. "We need a safe landing."

On Tuesday evening, the local Nepali community held a candlelight vigil at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow, according to Khattri. Many came out to call for justice for the 17 protesters killed by police.