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Punish Nepalese Army Men Say Human Rights Activists
By KTM Metro Reporter
July 16, 2010: On the occasion of the 12th International Justice Day today, human rights defenders condemned Nepal Army's acquittal of an army major found guilty of torturing a schoolgirl to death during the civil war according to the sify.com.
'Nepal's political leaders should make sure that the Nepal Army hands over an officer implicated in the murder of a 15-year-old girl to the police and that the officer is held accountable in civilian criminal proceedings,' the London-based Human Rights Watch and Kathmandu-based Advocacy Forum said in a letter to the leaders of Nepal's political parties. Even four years after the end of the Maoist insurgency in Nepal and the restoration of democracy, a succession of governments has failed to bring human rights violators to justice, both from security forces and the Maoist party says the letter.
The army had arrested schoolgirl Maina Sunuwar in 2004 and killed her obviously to destroy the witness of the rape and murder of at least two teenaged girls, as she was the witness of the gruesome crime committed by the army. The Kavre District Court charged Major Niranjan Basnet and three other army personnel with illegal detention, torture, and murder of Maina in 2007, and issued an arrest warrant. But the army refused to surrender Basnet to the court rather sent him on a UN peacekeeping mission in Chad as a reward. The UN sent him back to Nepal after the human rights activists objected it. The army has challenged the expulsion of Niranjan Basnet from the UN mission and the Defense Ministry endorsed the challenge saying the UN action was unwarranted.
