Nepali Army personnel ‘abducted’ three people

July 29, 2006
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Army personnel torture police officers, civilian at the Bhairabnath battalion
Police have said a group of Nepali Army personnel ‘abducted’ three people, including two police officers and a civilian, from Durbarmarg police station in the capital, Kathmandu, in the wee hours of Saturday and tortured them for nearly two hours at the Bhairavnath Battalion of Nepali Army – that had earned notoriety for torture and disappearance of detainees in the past.

According to police, a group of nearly two dozen soldiers led by Captain Roban Bikram Rana of the Bhairabnath battalion severely beat and tortured Police Inspector Ram Bahadur KC, Assistant Sub Inspector (ASI) Dharmendra Raya and driver Dil Bahadur Tamang after taking them forcibly to the battalion. Tamang said he was even subject to electric shocks by the army personnel.

KC and Raya are undergoing treatment at the Birendra Police hospital while Tamang has been admitted at the Bir hospital for treatment. They have bruises all over their bodies and faces.

According to reports, the incident took place at around 2 a.m. on Saturday in front of the Sanchaykosh building at Thamel—a popular tourist area—following an argument between Captain Rana and a police team on patrol over the issue of a wrongly parked vehicle.

Captain Rana and his aides misbehaved with the police team when the police notified them that their vehicle, a red Gipsy, was parked in the wrong way in the main road. A friend of Rana was taken under control by the police when he started punching policemen and was taken to the Durbarmarg police station. Rana escaped arrest but returned to the police station with a group of armed soldiers, ‘abducted’ police officers and their drivers at gunpoint and set his friend free.

A spokesman of the Nepali Army, Brigadier General Nepal Bhusan Chand, told reporters that an investigation is under way and that Rana and other soldiers would be punished if found guilty.

The incident took place just two days after pro-Maoist student leader, Himal Sharma, filed a writ petition at the Supreme Court saying that he was tortured badly and turned impotent at the Bhairabnath battalion. The apex court has issues show cause notices to the authorities in response to Sharma’s petition.

Nearly two months ago, UN Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) made public findings of its investigation saying that 49 people detainees had been disappeared from the battalion nearly three years ago. The UN human right monitoring body also said that detainees kept in the battalion were subject to inhuman and cruel torture and women detainees were allegedly raped by the personnel stationed there. Nepali Army has said it has launched a separate investigation to the allegations.