Chitwan District Attorney´s Office ordered Ram Prasad´s release, stating that the investigation report prepared by police does not contain adequate evidence for filing a murder case against him.[break]
Krishna Adhikari of Fujel in Gorkha district, who was 18 at the time, was abducted and subsequently murdered, allegedly by the then Maoist rebels, on June 6, 2004 in Ratanagar of Chitwan district, purportedly for spying on their activities.
Krishna´s brother Nur Prasad Adhikari had registered a police complaint categorically naming the 11 alleged murders and particulars about them, on 12 June, 2006. Following a directive from the National Human Rights Commission, Chitwan police had opened the file on the case.
Ram Prasad, one of the 11 categorically named in Nur Prasad´s complaint, was arrested 25 days ago in Kathmandu. With his release, the murder case filed against him has failed to proceed to court.
“We had submitted the investigation file to the District Attorney´s Office, the authority responsible for taking the case to court. But after receiving an order from the district attorney´s office, we released the accused on Monday evening,” said Senior Superintendent of Police Pradhyumna Karki.
Chitwan district police, after completing three weeks of investigations, had submitted its report to the district attorney´s office on Friday, demanding a three-year jail term for Ram Prasad as well as life imprisonment with confiscation of all property against those accused who are still on the lam. The district attorney´s office had returned the file to the police, saying information in the investigation report was vague.
Even after police re-submitted the report after gathering additional information, government attorney Ek Narayan Lamsal argued that the evidence provided was not sufficient for filing case.
According to the District Attorney´s Office, the investigation report fails to mention the name of the person who shot Krishna or to elaborate what sort of role was played by the accused in the murder.
The case, which had gone cold, was reopened by the government after Krishna´s parents Nanda Prasad Adhikari and Ganga Maya Adhikari staged a fast-unto-death demanding that their son´s murderers be brought to book. The Adhikari couple ended their fast-unto-death after 43 days on September 6.
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