Ian Martin, representative of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Nepal addressing a press briefing at the UN Building in Kathmandu, Friday, Aug 19 05. nepalnews.com/rh

The Nepal representative of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Ian Martin, has said the Maoists are responsible for the attack on public transportation in Chitwan and Kavrepalanchowk districts.

Talking to journalists in a press briefing on their investigation report on the above incidents, Martin emphasized the Maoists were responsible for the killing of passengers in both cases, and that it was a grave violation of international humanitarian laws.

Both civilians and security personnel were traveling in the ill-fated buses.

The Maoists on June 10 had opened fire and threw bombs at a passenger bus near Narke river of the Dhulikhel-Nepalthok section of the BP Highway killing six security personnel and two civilians. Two dozen more were injured in the attack.

A few days earlier on June 6, 36 passengers were killed and 72 injured in an Maoist triggered explosion on a passenger bus at Mudhekhola in Kalyanpur VDC, Madi area of Chitwan district, 40 kilometers south from Bharatpur, district headquarters.

There were wide spread condemnation for the attacks.

Martin added that the Maoists told the OHCHR that action has been taken against five of its cadres responsible for the inhumane incidents. He did not elaborate.

On the recent works carried out by his office, the Nepal representative of the OHCHR informed that over 270 individual complaints of human rights violations have been registered and that his office was investigating the cases.

He also informed that OHCHR was also investigating the nature of the self-defence or vigilante groups in some southern districts.