NEPAL: A teenage boy dies in police custody; foul play is suspected

Dear friends, 

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that a 16-year-old boy died in custody in unclear circumstances in Rupendehi District. Dharmentra Barai. The boy was arrested by the police and brought to Khajuriya Police Post regarding a lethal bicycle accident. He was taken dead to the hospital in the early morning of 4 July, some hours after he was removed from the police station. The circumstances surrounding his death are yet to be clarified and hospital records report various injuries on his body. Although an investigation team has been set up to probe into the death, strong doubts have arisen regarding its impartiality. 

CASE NARRATIVE: 

Dharmendra Barai was 16 years old and was a seventh grader at Gargatti High School, Gonaha VDC-8, Rupendehi, close to where he lived (more details can be found in the letter below). According to the information we have received from Advocacy Forum, an NGO, the boy was arrested by the police at around 12.30pm on 3 July 2010 regarding his alleged involvement in a bicycle collision in which a man had died a day earlier. We are told that police had already arrested and interrogated Dharmendra’s elder brother Mahendra Barai that morning. 

ASI Nar Bahadur Khatri, in charge of Khajuriya Police Post, and two plain clothed policemen were present at Dharmendra’s arrest, and various local villagers witnessed it. He was taken to Khajuriya Police Office and kept in a detention cell along with a Parsuram Pasi, who had been arrested at 10am that day regarding the same incident. According to Parsuram Pasi, that evening the police took Dharmendra to a separate room for about one hour, but it is unknown what happened during this time. 

We are told that later that evening 20 to 25 villagers – including members of Dharmendra’s family – visited the police office to ask for his release, stressing that he was firstly a minor, and secondly, had not committed a crime. They were able to visit Dharmendra, who was in tears, and who told them that the police had aimed their rifles at him and threatened to shoot him. An ASI Nar Bahadur Khatri reportedly announced that the boy would be released at 8am the next day and told the visitors to return then; they left at around 10.30pm. We are unable to determine what happened to the boy after this. However shortly after midnight, and after the evening meal, Dharmendra asked to be brought out from the cell claiming that he was dizzy, had a headache and felt that he might die; Parsuram also reports feeling that he might lose consciousness. After some timeone hour ASI Kahtri allowed the boy out of the cell, who reportedly fell to the ground, frothing from the mouth. The two detainees were taken from the station to Bhim Hospital Bhairahawa at around 1am. 

At around 4am ASI Khatri called Dharmendra’s family to tell them that he had been admitted to the Bhim Hospital in Bhairahawahospital. On arrival shortly after they found that the boy was already dead. The hospital records read ‘Brought Dead’, and also note that the body had an abrasion on left palm, bruising on his right sole and a two to three inch wound on his right arm, which have as yet been unexplained, these can be seen here, here and here. His family fear that he was tortured. 

According to one hospital source, the police had admitted Dharmendra at 2.35 am, and at 3 am Dr. Ruchi Hamal prepared the medical report and entered the case in the Death Register in the hospital record book. 

A four-member investigation team has been formed under the coordination of Assistant CDO Pitamber Ghimire to probe into the death. Nevertheless, the investigation team is comprised exclusively of police officers, rather than members of civil society or representatives of the victim’s family have been included, raising questions about its impartiality. 

The villagers and his relatives have staged a street demonstration with the boy’s corpse to demand a credible investigation, and compensation for the family. Inspector Surendra Raj Adhikari, who was in charge of guarding the dead body in the hospital, has reportedly been suspended for not performing his duties properly. We are told that ASI Khatri is currently posted at the Zonal Police Office. The District Administration Office has reportedly provided the family with NRs 20.000 to cover the cremation expenses. The postmortem report has not yet been made available. 

BACKGROUND INFORMATION: 

Torture of juveniles remains a serious concern in Nepal. On the occasion of the 2010 International Day in favour of the victims of Torture, Advocacy Forum released a report ‘Torture of Juveniles in Nepal’ which highlights that ‘Despite some improvement after the introduction in 2006 of the Juvenile Justice Regulations, juvenile detainees are still more frequently tortured than adults in Nepal’. Between April 2009 and March 2010 Advocacy Forum interviewed 957 juveniles in detention: 22.3% – or almost one child out of four – reported having been subjected to ‘torture or other ill-treatment at the time of arrest and/or during detention’. For more detailed information about the trends of juvenile torture in Nepal, please visit the Advocacy Forum website. 

Article 37 of UN Convention on the Rights of the Child concerns the rights of juveniles deprived of their liberty. Sub-clause A reads: ‘No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’. 

Furthermore, according to international standards minors deprived of their liberties should be kept in separate detention facilities from adults. Sub-clause C of the UN CRC reads ‘Every child deprived of liberty shall be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human person, and in a manner which takes into account the needs of persons of his or her age. In particular, every child deprived of liberty shall be separated from adults unless it is considered in the child’s best interest not to do so.’ The national legislation also includes similar provisions: according to the article 42-2 section a-b of the Children Act 1992, the child who is to be imprisoned, for investigation, adjudication or punishment, shall be kept in the Children’s Rehabilitation Home. 

In 2005 the Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of Child on Nepal’s Second Periodic report expressed concerns about conditions of detention, in which ‘persons under 18 are in most cases not separated from adults while in detention due to lack of juvenile detention facilities’ and recommends that the government ‘ensure that detained persons below 18 years are always separated from adults, and that deprivation of liberty is used only as a last resort, for the shortest appropriate time and in appropriate conditions’ 

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: 

Although allegations of torture and other ill-treatment are numerous in Nepal, most of them have not lead to an independent and impartial investigation followed by the prosecution of the perpetrators. In addition to torture not being criminalized, there is not any independent mechanism by which to investigate allegations of torture. Therefore it is common to have cases in which allegations of torture are investigated by police officers belonging to the same police station as the alleged perpetrators (please refer to AHRC-UAU-028-2008 and AHRC-UAU-010-2008); in which the police have threatened torture victims into withdrawing their complaints (please refer to AHRC-UAU-056-2008 and AHRC-UAC-195-2008) or ‘convinced’ them not to have particular police officials appearing in the First Information Report (UAU-011-2010); or more generally speaking, in which they have perverted the course of the investigation. 

In regards to those precedents, the absence of any representative of civil society in the committee in charge of investigating Dharmendra’s death raises strong concerns that the outcomes of the investigation may not be impartial and independent. 

SUGGESTED ACTION: 

Please join us in writing to the authorities listed below to ask for the immediate impartial investigation into the circumstances of this boy’s death in custody. 

The AHRC has written to the Nepal representative of the Office of the High Comission for Human Rights, asking for their intervention into this case.

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