KATHMANDU: Nepal’s interim prime minister honoured slain Gaza hostage Bipin Joshi during a solemn ceremony on Monday.
Sushila Karki draped a national flag over Joshi’s coffin after his body was flown back to Kathmandu under the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal.
“Bipin is a son of all Nepali mothers,“ Karki said at the airport ceremony.
“The name Bipin will be immortal, no one can forget him for his bravery and the hardships he had to face.”
Joshi was a 22-year-old agriculture student when kidnapped during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack.
He had arrived in Israel just weeks before Palestinian militants took 251 hostages to Gaza.
The student was taken from a kibbutz in southern Israel where 10 Nepali nationals were killed.
A survivor reported that Joshi saved friends by throwing a grenade back at assailants storming the community.
His family’s only sign of life was a short video clip believed filmed in November 2023.
The clip was later recovered by the Israeli military.
Nepal’s foreign ministry said the family held hope until Israel confirmed Joshi’s death on October 14.
“We waited for two years, and really hoped he would come home – but in vain,“ his cousin Kishor Joshi said.
Israel’s government said Joshi came “to learn agriculture and build a better future” in a social media post.
“An innocent life, full of promise, stolen too soon,“ Israel added.
His remains will be flown to his family in Kanchanpur in southwestern Nepal. – AFP
