2002-08-09 - incident - Bardiya district २०५९-०४-२४ - घटना - बर्दिया जिल्ला

Archive ref no: NCA-06548 अभिलेखालय सि. नं.: NCA-06548

Alleged incident overview | घटेको भनिएको घटनाको समीक्षा

Information regarding alleged incident | घटेको भनिएको घटनासम्बन्धी जानकारी

  • 142. Hari Ram Chowdhury
  • On August 9, 2002 (Shrawan 24, 2059), at 4 a.m., a large group of uniformed RNA soldiers came to Magargadhi VDC-5, Bardia district. The soldiers fanned out across the village, looking for certain men by name. Five men were arrested from the village, of whom three were released and two remain missing.
  • About fifty uniformed RNA soldiers came to the home of twenty-four-year-old Hari Ram Chowdhury, who had just returned from work in India two days before. The soldiers asked for Hari Ram by name, tied his hands behind his back, and ordered him to go with them.135 The soldiers also surrounded the house of forty-year-old Tate Ram Tharu, a village shopkeeper, and told him to come with them, telling his worried family he would be released in a few hours.136 The two men remain missing to date.
  • Human Rights Watch spoke to one of the three detainees who had been arrested with the two missing men, but was released the next day. The forty-six-year-old farmer explained how the soldiers had beaten his whole family before taking him and his son away, blindfolded. The soldiers beat the men so badly on the way to their vehicle that the farmer fainted. When they arrived at the security post -- the released detainee was blindfolded throughout the incident, but he and the relatives of the missing believe they were taken to the Rambhapur army barracks -- each of the men was individually beaten and questioned. The men were then left tied up outside in the cold rain for hours. The next afternoon, the soldiers took the farmer to a nearby jungle, and left him, still blindfolded, telling him not to remove the blindfold for thirty minutes. When he finally managed to make it home, he learned his son had been released earlier.137
  • When the relatives of the two "disappeared" men went to the Rambhapur army barracks, they met with a senior officer who told them that if they could bring a recommendation from village leaders certifying the men had nothing to do with the Maoists, they might be released -- strongly indicating that the men were indeed in his custody. However, when the families went back again to Rambhapur, the officials said they knew nothing about the case. Officials at the Chisapani army barracks also denied all knowledge of the case. The "disappearances" were reported to the ICRC, INSEC, and other local human rights organizations, but there has been no news about the two men, "not even rumors."138

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