Chitwan, September 9

Chitwan District Court today acquitted 12 people accused of having a hand in the murder of Krishna Prasad Adhikari of Gorkha’s Fujel.

A single bench of Judge Kul Prasad Sharma acquitted Sita Adhikari, Chhabilal Poudel, Ram Prasad Adhikari, Parsuram Poudel, Himlal Adhikari, Meghnath Poudel, Bishnu Tiwari, Kali Prasad Adhikari, Bhismaraj Poudel, Ram Prasad Adhikari, Januka Poudel and Shubhadra Tiwari.

Of them, Chhabilal Poudel is in jail, while others were freed on general date or on bail. One of the accused, Rudra Acharya, is out of the country and is yet to be produced before the court. Court staffer Gehendra Pant said the accused were let off for lack of sufficient evidence to establish their involvement in Adhikari’s murder.

The Supreme Court had quashed the district court’s decision to free Poudel on bail and ordered to keep him in jail.  Chhabilal had surrendered

before the apex court two months ago and was sent to Dillibazaar prison.

Krishna Prasad Adhikari, 19, from the erstwhile Fujel VDC of Gorkha, was allegedly abducted and murdered in Chitwan by former Maoist rebels in 2004 on the suspicion that he was spying for the state forces. His father Nanda Prasad Adhikari died while on an indefinite hunger strike to seek justice for his son’s murder in September 2014.

Adhikari’s mother Ganga Maya had broken her hunger strike in July.

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