The 18-member team that is headed by National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) member Gauri Pradhan will exhume the conflict-time graves starting Monday in a bid to identify five youths from Janakpur suspected to have been killed and buried along Kamala River in the district by security personnel in 2003. [break]
A group of four staffers from the NHRC had reached the southern town on Saturday to lay groundwork for the purpose.
Security personnel in 2003 had arrested Sanjiv Karna, 25, Durgesh Labh, 23, Jitendra Jha, 23, Pramod Narayan Mandal, 19, and Shailendra Yadav, 18, and subsequently made them disappear.
“The NHRC decided to exhume the graves along the Kamala River after a case was filed at the commission demanding the same,” said NHRC in a statement issued on Sunday.
Former NHRC member Sushil Pyakurel, Dr Harihar Wasti, Dr Pramod Shrestha, Dr Reason Shrestha, Dr Jenus Acharya, Archeologist Uddhav Acharya, Dinesh Kumar Jha and representatives and officials from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and NHRC are in the team.
Also, two Finnish forensic experts, who arrived in the country for the same purpose, have joined the team.
The NHRC´s bid to exhume the graves was finalized only after a discussion with Home Minister Bhim Rawal, chief secretary, home secretary, law secretary, police chief and attorney general, among other top officials, on Friday.
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