KATHMANDU, JANUARY 16

Family members and relatives of late Muktinath Adhikari and activists are commemorating the 21st anniversary of his brutal killing without a trace of any truth and justice even as four sets of people's representatives have been elected since the start of the peace process in Nepal in November 2006.

Adhikari was brutally murdered by the then CPN-Maoist cadres in Lamjung on 16 January 2002 allegedly for refusing to pay donation. A group of Maoist cadres had abducted him from the classroom in blindfolded condition to a nearby hillock, tied him to a tree and stabbed him and shot him in the head. He was serving as principal at Panini Sanskrit School in Duradanda and also as coordinator of a local group of Amnesty International Nepal in Lamjung.

The Adhikari family have knocked on every door for justice in Nepal but to no avail. No action has been forthcoming on the complaints registered with the regular justice mechanism - the police, the National Human Rights Commission, and the transitional justice body - the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

'It's deeply disappointing that the Supreme Court's order to amend the law on Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Commission on Investigation of Enforced Disappeared Persons remains ignored for seven years and that not a single case has been resolved either by the TRC or the CIEDP although two sets of commissioners have served for over six years,' Suman Adhikari, the son of late Adhikari said.

'It's both painful and shameful that the victims continue to suffer without truth, justice and reparations for years.'

At a time when it was not easy to freely express, let alone speak out one's differing view points, Muktinath Adhikari stood out against injustice and violence, including by inculcating human rights principles and values in the minds of the students he taught.

'Adhikari was an active and valuable member of Amnesty movement in Nepal, and we continue to not only denounce but also to take his killing personally as a vicious attack against what human rights defenders do – the defence of human rights,' Nirajan Thapaliya, director of Amnesty International Nepal, said. 'As we mourn the brutal killing of late Adhikari twenty one years ago today, our resolve to stand up and speak out against all forms of violence and injustice gets even more resolute.'

The brutal murder of Muktinath Adhikari is one of the emblematic cases among several thousand human rights violations committed by both the state and the insurgent group during the conflict. The victims and activists have long been consistently calling out for speedy resolution of the unfinished agenda of truth, justice and reparations, which remain stalled even 17 years after the end of the conflict.

A version of this article appears in the print on January 17, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.