Who does Nepal’s police serve — power or the law?

There was a time when seeing the police made me nervous. These days, I find myself feeling sorry for them.

I used to assume that anyone being led away by the police must have been a thief, a fraudster, a thug or a criminal. Now the instinct is almost reversed. When someone is arrested, I wonder whether they might emerge from custody with more public sympathy, greater political standing and a stronger claim to victimhood than they had when they went in.