Brushing aside the Maoist claim, the Informal Sector Service Centre (INSEC), a human rights group, Wednesday said that Shyam Sundar Sahani and Shambhu Sahani of Basantapatti in Rautahat district, who were abducted on May 22, were killed by the Maoists on the same day.

In a press conference in Kathmandu, INSEC officials said their investigation revealed that the Sahani brothers who were abducted by the Maoists on charges of robbery, were lynched by Maoist cadres, who were posing as local residents, on the banks of Bakaiya River.

The Maoists then buried the dead on the riverbanks. Police had recovered their mutilated bodies four days later.

Shyam Sundar and Shambhu were sons of the Nepali Congress District Committee member Jogendra Sahani. They were abducted from their home in Basantapatti.

Earlier, media reports quoted local Maoists as saying that the two men were killed by the locals as they were involved in looting.

INSEC officials said the Sahani brothers were lynched at the order of a local Maoist leader named Prajwol. After their abduction, the Maoists had called an INSEC official and a local journalist to witnesses their release but later said that they had been handed over to the locals.

Demanding that those involved in the killing be punished, the rights group also urged the government and the Maoists to strictly observe the human rights norms and the ceasefire code of conduct.