Kavre, May 26

Following appeals from the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation and the Commission for Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons, 140 complaints have been filed in Kavre so far, while many victims are still undecided as to what to do.

Of the complaints lodged with the Local Peace Committee, 118 are meant for the TRC while the remaining 22 are for the CIEDP.

“The district witnessed thousands of cases of violence related to abduction, hostage-taking, arson and the likes and more than 1,500 persons were affected but so far only a little over 100 complaints have been filed, which is way less than what we expected,” said local peace committee coordinator Tulku Lama, presenting the official data of 286 deaths, 22 enforced disappearances and displacements caused by either the state or the then rebel side during the decade-long Maoist insurgency.

In fact, five serious human rights violation cases related to the insurgency had been lodged with district police office Kavre at different times much earlier. But, files of these cases have been gathering dust in some corner of the police office without investigation for long.

As of now, human rights organisations are preparing to revive and take three of the cases to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

The cases are related to the murders of 17-year-old Subhadra Chaulagain of Pokharichauri, Hari Bolakhe of Phulbari and Arjun Bahadur Lama of Chhatrebanjh.

While Chaulagain of Pokharichauri-3 was shot to death by security personnel on February 13, 2004, Bolakhe of Phulbari-8, Lakaine was taken away from detention and murdered, professedly during a search operation by the state security forces on February 16.

Lama of Chhatrebanjh-5, Dapcha, on the other hand, fell prey to the then rebels, who spirited him away from a local school before murdering him on April 29, 2005.

Interestingly, forest minister Agni Sapkota, a Maoist leader; and another Maoist central member Suryaman Dong are connected with these cases.

Earlier, when Sapkota and Dong were minister for information and communication and state minister for energy, respectively, the Supreme Court, acting on a writ filed by a team of human rights activists, had passed an interim order and told the district police to brief the court about the progress on the cases twice a month through the Office of the Attorney General.

The police, however, have done nothing so far, identifying the Maoist leaders as being at large.

Likewise, regarding the murder of 15-year-old Maina Sunar of Kharelthok, Kavre, who was killed due to extreme torture at the hands of security forces, the Kavre district court, more than two years ago, had ruled that the case be kept pending for two years citing the failure of the four NA officers identified as defendants to present themselves at the court.

A single bench of then district judge Ishworraj Acharya had kept the case pending.