Home Minister Sudan Gurung told a memorial gathering on Tuesday that September 8, 2025 — the day security forces opened fire on protesters during Nepal's Gen Z uprising should be remembered as "the day the country died," rejecting what he described as attempts to rewrite the movement's history around the unrest that followed the next day.
Gurung was speaking at an event organised by the Gen-Z Martyrs' Families Welfare Society on the grounds of the former federal parliament building in New Baneshwar, Kathmandu, marking the first anniversary of the uprising and the country's first official Gen Z Martyrs' Day, a newly declared public holiday.
"We all came together as young people to stand for good governance. But our peaceful movement was brutally suppressed, and brothers and sisters who were protesting alongside us were shot," Gurung said, according to the Kathmandu Post.
He drew a direct contrast with September 9, 2025 the day rioting spread and Singha Durbar, the seat of Nepal's government, was set ablaze saying that day should not overshadow what happened first. "Even now, we see people shamelessly being trained to say that September 9 was the day the country burned. September 8 was the day the country died," Gurung said.
Gurung, who was one of the most visible faces of the Gen Z movement before entering government, pledged to work toward fulfilling the demands that drove people into the streets last year, saying he wanted to live up to the trust placed in him by Prime Minister Balendra Shah and Rastriya Swatantra Party chairperson Rabi Lamichhane.
According to a separate account of the event from Khabarhub, Gurung told the gathering that the government "did not come to power to make grand speeches, but to fulfil the people's hopes and realise the dream of good governance." He praised the Nepal Police, Armed Police Force and Nepali Army, and accused previous governments of misusing security agencies for political ends, saying his government had created space for them to work impartially. He also said he was committed to ensuring justice for security personnel, and urged martyrs' families and injured protesters to see him "not merely as a minister but as their own son, brother or elder brother."
Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sobita Gautam also addressed the event, saying the movement had erupted amid growing public anger, particularly after the previous government's ban on major social media platforms. "The people were increasingly angry. We were fighting from inside Parliament. The single clear message of the Gen-Z movement was the demand for good governance," Gautam said, according to Radio Nepal's public broadcasting service.
Gurung's remarks came the same day that survivors and victims' families at the same event accused the government of falling short on separate commitments including medical treatment for the injured and the release of jailed protesters a part of the anniversary ICN has covered in a separate report.
