Kathmandu, December 10:

Dismissed security personnel and victims of torture today started hunger strike on the premises of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Chhauni.

Manoj Sharma, Hom Bahadur Bagale, Indra Prasad Acharya and Basanta Aryal today begun their fast-onto-death strike on the UN OHCHR premises from mid-day in a bid to draw attention of the authority concerned.

“We are barred from entering Singha Durbar these days. We staged rallies in the capital, met the ministers but to no avail,” said Bagale, the president of the Joint Struggle Committee of Dismissed Security Personnel and Community of Victims of Torture.

Their demands include reinstatement of the security personnel, due compensation for the victims of torture, action against those involved in human rights violation and reintegration of the people displaced during the conflict into the society. Bagale said they wanted the UN commission to convey their demands to the government.

“We resorted to hunger strike coinciding with the International Human Rights Day so that authorities concerned know that we are fighting for our basic rights human rights,” he said.

According to him, about 13,000 police personnel, 8,000 armed police personnel and 18,000 soldiers have lost their job during the insurgency, some were forced by the Maoists to quit the jobs while others were dismissed on charges they never did.