2002-04-19 - incident - Dang district २०५९-०१-०६ - घटना - दाङ जिल्ला

Archive ref no: NCA-05053 अभिलेखालय सि. नं.: NCA-05053

Alleged incident overview | घटेको भनिएको घटनाको समीक्षा

Information regarding alleged incident | घटेको भनिएको घटनासम्बन्धी जानकारी

  • 83. Kedarnath Chowdhury
  • At about noon on April 19, 2002 (Baishak 6, 2059), a large contingent of uniformed RNA soldiers arrived in Katberawa village, Bela VDC, Dang district. The RNA soldiers were supported by military helicopters that landed repeatedly in the area.79 Apparently, the RNA operation was in response to a Maoist attack on the nearby Lamahi army barracks four months earlier on November 23, 2001 (Mangshir 8, 2058).
  • The soldiers rounded up a large number of men from the village and took them to a nearby river for questioning. One person, twenty-seven-year-old Chatak Bahadur Chowdhury, was killed by the soldiers as he was working to repair a neighbor's roof (see below). According to the villagers, Chatak Bahadur Chowdhury was not affiliated with the Maoists, and had spent most of the previous eight years working in India.
  • Twenty-five-year-old Dani Ram Chowdhury was arrested by a group of twenty to thirty RNA soldiers while repairing the roof of his home, together with many of the villagers who had come to help him.80 Twenty-eight-year-old Kedarnath Chowdhury, a carpenter by trade, and thirty-two-year-old Bhim Bhahadur Chowdhury were arrested from the same home where Cheilak Bahadur was killed, while also helping to repair the roof.81 Sixteen-year-old Hari Lal Chowdhury was also arrested there, and then brought to his parental home in the same village, where the soldiers then tried to arrest his disabled uncle. However, the man could not walk, and the soldiers only took Hari Lal away. Hari Lal's other uncle, forty-year-old Udaya Chowdhury, was also detained that day.82
  • Fifty-year-old Khim Bahadur Pun, a farmer, was working at his rice mill when soldiers came to his home, asked for him by name, and took him away. His young son followed the soldiers to the river, where they gave him his father's watch and money, and told him they were going to kill his father.83
  • A large group of detained villagers, estimated at about fifty, was taken to the nearby river, where they were interrogated by the soldiers. The soldiers left with the six detainees named above, who were never seen again. The families informed local human rights organizations, the NHRC, and the ICRC of the "disappearances," and visited various detention centers in the district, but were unable to obtain any further information. Several times, relatives were told by officials that the men had been killed in an "encounter," and local newspapers also published rumors to that effect, but there has been no official confirmation. The group of six men "disappeared" after last being seen alive in RNA custody.84

Incident Reference Tools | घटनासम्बन्धी सन्दर्भ सामग्री