Kisan Tharu saw his 12-year-old daughter Rupa killed by security personnel in Jagatiya, Bardiya six years back at the height of the Maoist insurgency. Human rights activists and media persons, while filing their reports, had assured him that the guilty would be punished.
The Maoists had promised to take action before the elections, but did nothing even after they came to lead the government. “Nobody does anything. Why should I pain myself talking repeatedly about the killing of my innocent daughter,” says Tharu when asked about it.
Rupa was killed by security personnel in a search operation after an argument with Kisan. “You feed the Maoists and don´t care when we have come here, they argued and started beating me up. And they killed Rupa, who was sleeping, right in front of me,” Tharu recalls.
State-owned Radio Nepal called second grader Rupa a Maoist in its news bulletin the next day. “She knew nothing about politics,” Tharu says. “I hoped the Maoists would do something after attaining power, but they didn´t even spell anything out about punishing the guilty,” Tharu rues.
He says that he sold two katthas of land to meet expenses borne while going to human rights offices in search of justice. “The powerful can get away with anything. Nobody cares about justice for the poor,” Tharu says.
Similarly, the families of nine persons killed by security personnel on December 4, 2002 in Laxmipur-3, Dang have also lost hope of justice. “The security personnel fired at villagers gathering for Pendiya (a Tharu festival celebrated after reaping the harvest), without even questioning them. All the victims were common villagers and none was a Maoist as claimed by the security personnel,” Pampe Chaudhary, a local, says.
The security personnel took control of the bodies and made a spot report claiming that they were killed in an encounter in a neighboring village. They forced the locals to sign it. “Two of the killed were government employees. If the government doesn´t care even for its own employees, what will it do for common people?” Chaudhary questions.
There have been hundreds of such extra-judicial killings by both the government and Maoist sides during the decade-long armed conflict. “Such cases should have been investigated after the restoration of democracy. There have been no breakthroughs because of the legal provision which requires the police themselves to file cases against the excesses of the security personnel,” says coordinator of the Advocacy Forum Sushil Lakhe. “The police themselves are involved in some cases and there is difficulty for them in initiating cases against the army,” Lakhe adds.
Human rights activists claim that more than 50 percent of 7,000 persons killed by the state and the rebels in the Mid-Western Region were killed extra-judicially. The victims believe that the Maoists, who had championed their cause before the elections, took their hands off the issue after forming the government, fearing that inquiries would implicate themselves as the majority of those killed by them were civilians.
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