2003-11-12 - incident - Dhading district २०६०-०७-२६ - घटना - धादिङ जिल्ला

Archive ref no: NCA-10818 अभिलेखालय सि. नं.: NCA-10818

Alleged incident overview | घटेको भनिएको घटनाको समीक्षा

Information regarding alleged incident | घटेको भनिएको घटनासम्बन्धी जानकारी

  • 30. Ram Prasad Acharya
  • Between midnight and 4 a.m. on November 12, 2003 (Kartik 26, 2060), a large group of RNA troops arrested five people in nearby Thakre and Naubisa VDCs in Dhadhing. Two of the detainees were released, but the other three "disappeared" without a trace.
  • At about midnight on November 11, 2003 (Kartik 25, 2060), family members of thirty-eight-year-old Indra Bahadur Aryal were awakened by knocking at the door of their home in Thakre VDC, Dhadhing district. When they opened the door, they saw a group of fifty to sixty uniformed RNA soldiers outside. The soldiers entered the home and found Aryal's membership card of the mainstream CPN-UML. They then ordered Aryal to go with them and put him in an RNA truck. They also confiscated Aryal's motorcycle.
  • Aryal's arrest took place one day after the arrest of Indra Thapa from the same village, but Thapa was released immediately. A third villager28 was arrested the same night as Aryal and released about three months later. After his release, the villager informed the family that he and Aryal had been held together at Chaunni Army Barracks in Kathmandu. The released detainee also told the family that the army accused Aryal of allowing a Maoist to use his motorcycle. A relative of Aryal went to the Chaunni barracks on several occasions but was unable to meet with Aryal; however, a guard at the gate of the Chaunni barracks did confirm to the relative that the motorcycle was at the barracks.
  • The family sought information at the Chaunni army barracks, the Baireni army camp in Dhading, and at the CDO's office in Dhading, but received no further information.
  • They reported the "disappearance" to the ICRC and various human rights organizations, and petitioned the King, but have received no further official information.29
  • At around 2 a.m. on November 12, 2003 (Kartik 26, 2060), about twenty armed RNA soldiers in civilian clothes came to Thakre VDC-2, Dhading. They arrested Navaraj Thapa, thirty-year-old shop owner, in a small guesthouse in the same village, which they found with the help of the man's younger brother. They also seized his motorcycle, a Hero Honda Splendor (Ba.9 Pa 4537).
  • The family went to NHRC and the ICRC, but was unable to obtain any information. The family said that Thapa was never involved in politics, but that other villagers, envying their relative prosperity, falsely accused him of lending his motorcycle to the Maoists for the transportation of weapons.
  • The family also heard from one of the released detainees that Thapa was held along with them at the Chhauni barracks for the first several days.
  • Navaraj Thapa had been arrested before, on October 1, 2003 (Ashoj 14, 2060), along with his younger brother. Both men were then brought to the Bhairabnath Gulm (Maharajgunj) army barracks in Kathmandu. The army released Navaraj eight days later, and his younger brother spent another seven months in detention, first in Bhairabnath, and then in the 6 No Bahini Bareni army barracks.30
  • At 4 a.m. on the morning of November 12, 2003 (Kartik 26, 2060), just hours after Navaraj Thapa's arrest, a group of eight or nine soldiers, one of them uniformed and the others in plainclothes, came to the home of forty-nine-year-old Ram Prasad Acharya, a businessman who lived in Naubise VDC of Dhading district, on the main Kathmandu-Pokhara road. Acharya owned a bus that plied local roads, and was in the process of building a small motel on his property along the main road. The soldiers woke up the workers sleeping in the front of the construction site and ordered them to direct them to Acharya's room. When the soldiers located Acharya, they locked his wife in the bedroom and took Acharya with them. Acharya's wife was only freed when villagers came to find out what had happened the next morning.
  • The family informed the ICRC, Amnesty International, and the NHRC of the "disappearance." They also approached the human rights cell of the RNA and filed a habeas corpus petition in the Supreme Court, which remains undecided. They received no information from official sources, but a released detainee told them in December 2003 that he had spent two months in the same cell with Acharya at the Jagadal army barracks in Kathmandu.
  • According to the family, Acharya was not involved in politics. Earlier, in 1996, Acharya had been elected as a ward chairman from the CPN-UML party, which has no links to CPN-M.31

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