NEPAL: Police unable to arrest the murderers of Ram Hari Shrestha

Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission wishes to draw your attention on the case of Ram Hari Shrestha, a businessman from Kathmandou who was allegedly abducted on 27 April 2008 by members of the United Communist Party of Nepal (UCPN), which is mainly known as the Maoists Party, and later died reportedly in the aftermath of severe ill-treatment received inside the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), third division in Chitwan. The Chitwan District Court has formally charged five Maoists cadres in relation to the case but, to date, only one has been arrested. Kali Bahadur Kham, the main accused in this case and former commandant of the PLA third division, has been promoted within the Maoists party and the party has refused to cooperate with the police and bring him before the civilian institutions.

CASE NARRATIVE:

According to the information we have received from Advocacy Forum, Ram Hari Shrestha, a businessman from Koteshor, Kathmandu was reportedly abducted on 27 April 2008 by members of the United Communist Party of Nepal (UCPN), which is known as Maoists party. He was accused of having stolen Rs 1.7 million and a weapon. The victim was then brought to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) cantonment in Chitwan District where he was severely beaten. On 8 May 2008, he succumbed to his injuries inflicted by torture by the members of the PLA and on 25 May 2008, his dead body was recovered from Kailash Village Development Committee (VDC) Ward No-1, Jugedi, Chitwan District on the bank of Trishuli River.

After a complaint was filed by Ramila Shrestha (Ram Hari Shrestha’s wife), the Chitwan District Court formally charged five Maoists cadres in connection with the incident: Kali Bahadur Kham, Govinda Bahadur Batala, Keshab Adhikari, Ganga Ram Thapa and Karki and issued arrest warrants against them on 11 June 2008. Only one of the five, Batala, has been arrested and is now in pre-trial detention. The four other accused have been declared absconding by the police after they did not appear before the court.

In December 2008, the OHCHR office in Nepal expressed its concern regarding the inadequate investigation in Shrestha’s killing and that ‘six months after five persons were charged in relation to the crime only one individual has been arrested’. It underlined that it was believed that some of the other charged were ‘inside the cantonment of the Maoists Army in Shaktikhor, Chitwan’.

Indeed, despite having launched an internal probe panel to investigate into Shrestha’s killing and admitted their responsibility in it, the Maoists party has refused to cooperate with the police and has protected its cadres from civilian prosecutions. On 24 May 2008, the PLA announced that one of the main accused Kali Bahadur Kham who was the commander of the PLA Third Division at the time of Shrestha’s abduction was suspended. Nevertheless, despite of those internal sanctions, he was never handed over to the police and was later promoted in the party hierarchy in January 2009. He is now a Central Committee Member and the Commander of the PLA Fifth Division. Moreover, the Maoists leadership has met up with the victim’s family, agreed to pay compensation to the family and absolve Kham of the crime.

The Nepal Police has reported having sent two letters to the PLA requesting an interview with Kali Bahadur Kham on 23 May and 1 June 2008 which remained unanswered. They have reportedly not undertaken any other action to investigate into the allegations and justified by expressing their incapacity to arrest Kham without the cooperation of the Maoists party and of the People’s Liberation Army. The National Human Rights Commission in its 2006-2009 Summary Report deplores the fact that the chief police of Chitwan District did not provide them with the information and documents demanded in relation with the case.

Kham has also been recently accused of masterminding the robbery of three Chinese traders in Kathmandu. On 9 August 2010, the Kathmandu District Court issued an arrest warrant against Kham and ordered the police to produce him before the court within seven days. The Home Minister Bhim Rawal met up with the Maoists Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal on 15 July to urge the Maoists party to hand over the accused to the police.

Since then, the Maoists have announced that they would discuss whether or not to cooperate with the police and to produce Kham in court in a Central Committee meeting which was supposed to be held on 12 August. Nevertheless, since that date, the Maoists party has not made any move to hand Kham over to the police.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

Interference of political parties with the course of justice has reportedly been deplored as an obstacle which prevents the accountability of past and present human rights violations in Nepal, therefore allowing further violations to take place and hampering the development of strong and independent rule of law institutions.

In her 2010 report

on the activities of her office in Nepal, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed her concern that ‘Both the Nepalese Army and the UCPN-M continue to resist attempts to hold their personnel accountable for human rights violations and abuses and to withhold cooperation from civilian authorities responsible for investigating such cases’. The report specifically deplores that ‘The leadership of the UCPN-M has (…) failed to cooperate with criminal investigations into the involvement of its cadres in serious human rights abuses during and after the conflict, including (…) the killing of Ram Hari Shrestha (…)’

Another high profile case illustrating the Maoists continuous unwillingness to cooperate with civilian justice institutions concerns the enforced disappearance and murder of Arjun Bahadur Lama

 a high school teacher in April 2005. In this case, the Maoists continuously refused to cooperate with the police investigation, they also refused to disclose to the victim’s widow what they knew about her husband’s whereabouts and they repeatedly threatened the human rights defenders involved in the case.

In this case, as in Ram Hari Shrestha’s, the civilian justice institutions have proven unable to overcome the obstacles by the Maoists party and to prosecute the persons charged with the crime. Since the end of the conflict, despite orders from the courts, the police have repeatedly proven unable to arrest and detain members of the Maoists or of the Nepal Army accused of human rights violations. This repeated surrender in front of the Maoists or the Army has damaged the credibility of the rule of law institutions in the country and further eroded their ability to effectively protect and give justice to all the citizens equally.

SUGGESTED ACTION:

Please join us in writing to the competent authorities urging for a proper investigation into this case and asking for holding the perpetrators of the abduction and the subsequent killing accountability.

Please be informed that the Asian Human Rights Commission has written separate letters to the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Nepal (OHCHR).

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