NEPAL: Police sexually abuse and torture a woman and two other detainees

Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information regarding the repeated beatings and torture inflicted by a police team from the Metropolitan Police Crime Division (MPCD), Hanumandhoka police station upon Gyan Bahadur Balami, Makar Bahadur Gharti Magar and Hermin Ratu Lama on 31 October and 1 November 2010. It is also alleged that the policemen sexually abused Ratu Lama. Since the incidents and as of 26 November, the victims have not been provided appropriate medication and they remain in the custody of the same police station in which the police team that allegedly tortured them is also on duty. It must be noted that Inspector Bhism Humagai who commanded the team had already accused of a case involving the assault of detainees earlier this year. No action had been taken against him so far, allowing him to remain on duty.

 

CASE NARRATIVE:

According to the information we have received, the police arrested Gyan Bahadur Balami (Gyanu), 36 from Hetauda Bus Park in Makwanpur district at around 8.30 am on 31 October 2010. The police suspected Gyanu for stealing a USD 1,000 worth travel cheque, a valuable stone and some gold from a house in Shyambhu, Kathmandu a few days before.

At the time of his arrest, he was reportedly talking in his mobile phone when five to six policemen from the Metropolitan Police Crime Division (MPCD), Hanumandhoka police station under the command of Inspector Bhism Humagai approached him from behind. The police allegedly assaulted Gyanu with sticks, and punched and kicked him. He was then reportedly handcuffed with his hands held back and beaten for 20 more minutes, before being blindfolded with a piece of cloth and taken by a vehicle to a nearby jungle. The policemen reportedly pushed him out of the jeep, dragged him to a ditch and forced his head in-between the roots of a fallen tree. The victim was then inflicted serious torture: the policeman who had driven the vehicle forced a pistol into his mouth while the others beat him randomly on his back, legs, hands and soles. Then they drilled on his right sole with a sharp wooden stick until it started bleeding. In spite of the victim’s screams, the torture continued and some of the policemen reportedly banged his left shoulder against a tree while two of them repeatedly climbed on it and beat randomly on his back. It is reported that Gyanu suffered a fracture on his shoulder due to this. Questioning him about the stolen gold and money, the policemen flexed his fingers vigorously until he agreed to admit the crime. The victim reports having heard that someone was ordering the police officers to shoot him immediately through a walkie-talkie. The policemen reportedly forced him to lie on his back, cocked a pistol, forced it into his mouth and said, “What is your last desire?” but they were interrupted by the victim’s mobile phone ringing.

The policemen then took him to his house in the same vehicle and searched his house. They seized some money, boots and a jacket. Hermin Ratu Lama, Gyan Bahadur Balami’s wife, was arrested and dragged into the vehicle by male policemen. They were taken to the District Police Office (DPO), Makawanpur. The police verbally abused them on the way. At the DPO, they were detained in separate detention cells.

Later that day, the police brought Gyanu to Pathailaiya in Bara district. They went to a house where he had lived for a few months in the past from which they seized an old model computer that belonged to him. They returned to the DPO, Makawanpur in the evening.

Although Section 23(2) of the Police Act 1956 mandates that all police stations must keep a daily record of all the detainees, the policemen from Hanumandhoka police station who had arrested him and brought him to the DPO, Makawanpur first ordered the guard commander not to register Gyanu’s name in the police records. Nevertheless, later that night the guard commander still registered his name and he was detained in a cell, given food and wasn’t inflicted any kind of tortured that night.

At 7.30am on 1 November 2010, the same police team took Gyanu to a jeweller, suspecting that Gyanu had sold the missing gold and arrested the shopkeeper, Gyan Ratna Bajracharya. They then took him to Butwal, Nawalparasi District to arrest another suspect Makar Bahadur Gharti Magar (Iman). On the way they stopped the vehicle at Daunne jungle and allegedly assaulted Gyanu with sticks for about four to five minutes. They again stopped near a jungle in Khaireni and once again assaulted Gyanu.

Iman was arrested at 5.30 pm from Butwan Industrial Area. At the time of his arrest, five to six policemen reportedly assaulted him with sticks, police boots and fists for about half an hour. After he was handcuffed, he was taken to the vehicle in which Gyanu was. According to Iman at that time he noticed that Gyanu’s face swollen and covered with blue marks of torture. The police then took Iman to a jungle and assaulted him for about half an hour until he admitted the crime. The police then inflicted the same treatment on Gyanu.

The arrestees were then taken to the Area Police Office, Butwal before being transferred to the DPO, Makawanpur latter that day. On the way to the DPO, the police reportedly stopped twice to inflict torture on the prisoners for 10 to15 minutes each time, beating them randomly with sticks, fists and boots. They were then detained in a cell of the DPO, Makawanpur.

On 2 November 2010, Hermin, Gyanu’s wife, was taken to the inspector’s office room at the DPO. There, four unidentified policemen reportedly tortured her. They allegedly forced her to lie on the floor, two of them stepped on her knees, and one grabbed her hair while another officer beat the soles of her feet using a bamboo stick. They reportedly manhandled her and her upper body undergarments were torn apart. Further, they used a bamboo stick to hit her waist, torn her pants (salwar) and tried to peel off her underwear. Gyanu and Iman had been brought to the room, handcuffed, to witness the torture until Gyanu promised that he was ready to sign any document admitting the crime. At that point, it is reported that the policemen stopped torturing Hermin but forced him to lie on the floor and beat him for five to six minutes. Inspector Bhism Humagai then ordered a female constable to slap Hermin several times, which the officer did. During that interrogation session, the same policemen also beat Iman with bamboo sticks for about five minutes.

Latter the same morning, Gyanu, Hermin, Iman, Gyan Rathna Bajracharya and another detainee Karma Gurung were taken to Kathmandu. On the way, one of the policemen reportedly showed Iman a photograph of a beheaded body and threatened him that he would kill him in the similar manner and throw him in the jungle. Upon arriving at Balkhu in Kathmandu, they were blindfolded and brought to a private house that, as they later came to know, was located in Sanepa in Kathmandu and which was guarded by three plainclothes policemen. Gyanu saw that his motorcycle was kept inside the compound. The detainees were kept in a room in the house, with Hermin being detained separately from the other. There, male policemen reportedly beat her with bamboo sticks. Iman and Gyanu were also one by one transferred to another room in which they were beaten with a plastic pipe in which a wire was inserted by a new team of policemen dressed in civilian clothes interrogating them about previous thefts.

On 3 November 2010, the victims were blindfolded and taken to the DPO, Hanumandhoka, Kathmandu. In the evening, Iman and Gyanu were taken to the Metropolitan Police Crime Division, Hanumandhoka, Kathmandu where they were kicked, slapped and verbally abused by the policemen passing by. The same police team that had arrested them then beat them and interrogated them for two hours.

The repeated torture sessions have made a deep impact on the physical and mental health of the victims. Gyanu had complained of sustaining injury on his left temple, left ear, and both elbows and on his back, which is still swollen and aching. His shoulder has been swollen and he could not raise his left hand. He has reportedly suffered from hearing problems in his left ear, which was bleeding after the torture, and from chest pain when coughing and breathing. His left molar is loose, his gum is swollen and he has a wound on his right sole. He reports having sleepless nights and fearing the sight of policemen. Hermin has complained that in the aftermath of torture, she had problems to open her mouth for four to five days, had blue marks of torture on her cheeks, knees, feet and soles. Iman is suffering from pain in his forehead, temple, left cheek, molar and fingers and from a burning sensation on his soles and ankles.

In spite of their request, the police did not provide them any medicines. On 4 November 2010, Gyanu was taken to Bir Hospital but the doctors reportedly did not take his complaints into account. He was prescribed only painkillers and referred to the Dental OPD, but the police ignored both prescriptions. A Physical and Mental check-up application was filed at the District Court, Kathmandu on 18 November 2010 following which the court ordered the Metropolitan Police Range, Kathmandu to conduct a physical and mental check-up upon the victims and to provide medication and further to produce the report before the court. On 22 November, Gyanu was taken to the Forensic Department of the Teaching Hospital and following his request the doctor referred the case to the ENT Department and General OPD. As of 26 November, the medical reports have not been issued and the victims are not provided with the appropriate medication.

On 3 November 2010, they were remanded for seven days for the first time, under the charges of drug smuggling and theft. They were remanded again on 9 November 2010 for 10 days and on 18 November 2010 for 7 days. Although they were arrested on 31 October and 1 November, they were only presented before a judicial authority on 3 November. Before their remand, the police made them sign a statement that they were not allowed to read. They were then taken to the District Court, Kathmandu where they were remanded. They were later served with an arrest warrant and a detention order. Until their presentation before the court and the issuance of their detention letters on the same day, they had reportedly not been informed that they had been charged under robbery and drug smuggling.

The AHRC is worried to observe that the victims remain under the custody of the MPR, Kathmandu and are therefore highly vulnerable to further torture as the alleged perpetrators remain on duty there. According to the information we have received, the victims have been threatened of more torture to make them admit more crimes. On 22 November, Gyanu was reportedly taken to the Litigation Section of the MPR, Kathmandu and forced by the same police team to sign a statement that they had prepared.

 

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

Nepal police’s routine use torture to extract admissions from suspects remains a worrying issue. It is unfortunate to notice that Inspector Bhism Humagai who commands the police team allegedly responsible for the torture inflicted on those three victims had already been allegedly involved in the severe beating of two female and one male detainees earlier this year. In the urgent appeal UAC-020-2010

, the AHRC had denounced the torture inflicted on Ms. Indra Kala Gurung, Ms. Saraswoti Gurung and Mr. Chandra Bahadur Gurung in the same police station on 3 February 2010 in which Inspector Bhism Humagai was directly involved. Although the case has been pending in the District Court, Kathmandu for several month, no action has been taken against the alleged perpetrators so far, allowing an alleged torturer to remain in a position in which he can continue to abuse the rights of the persons under his custody. This situation regrettably acts as a reminder of the consequences of a prevalent impunity for the perpetrators of torture, which encourages this practice as the perpetrators remain under the misconception that resorting to torture is unlikely to bring to severe consequences.

The detention of prisoners in private facilities has been regularly denounced by Nepalese civil society organizations (for instance see Torture of Juveniles in Nepal: a serious challenge to the Justice system

) has a mean frequently resorted to by Kathmandu police to dissimulate the ill treatments that they inflict to the prisoners and therefore avoid prosecutions. When detainees are kept in private houses, when their names are not kept in the police records (as reportedly was the first intention of the Hanumandhoka police team when they first brought the detainees to the DPO, Makawanpur), their vulnerability to torture and ill-treatment increases as it gets harder for them to prove that those abuses occurred. Similarly, the victims remained under the police custody for several days before being presented before a judicial authority which is a violation of the article 24 of the 2063 Interim Constitution which mandates that “Every person who is arrested shall be produced before a judicial authority within a period of twenty-four hours after such arrest, […] and no such a person shall be detained in custody beyond the said period except on the order of such authority”, and further exposes the victims to arbitrary detention and ill-treatments.

Similarly, the fact that it was not until their remand that the victims were informed that they had been charged for drug smuggling violates another disposition of the article 24 of the constitution which states that “No person who is arrested shall be detained in custody without being informed of the ground for such arrest”.

It is frequently reported that police frequently forces victims or witnesses to sign statements without letting them read the content, sometimes to claim that torture was not inflicted upon such and such detainee.

The fact that female detainees are still being arrested, interrogated and kept under the custody of male police officers is another worrying trend illustrated by this case. The arrest and interrogation of Hermin Ratu Lama by male police officers exposed her to physical torture and sexual abuses and special attention should be given to the conditions of detention of female detainees.

SUGGESTED ACTION:

Please join us in writing to the authorities listed below to ask for the impartial investigation of this case, immediate protection and medical treatment for the detainees and their transfer to another place of detention.

Please be informed that the AHRC is writing separate letters to the UN Special Rapporteurs on the question of torture and for violence against women and to the Representative of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Kathmandu, calling for their intervention in this case.

To support this case, please click here: SEND APPEAL LETTER