National
NHRC urges govt to save Ganga Maya Adhikari
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has drawn the government’s attention towards the ongoing hunger strike of Ganga Maya Adhikari to demand justice for her son Krishna Prasad who was abducted and murdered by the Maoist rebels in 2004.The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has drawn the government’s attention towards the ongoing hunger strike of Ganga Maya Adhikari to demand justice for her son Krishna Prasad who was abducted and murdered by the Maoist rebels in 2004.
The human rights watchdog on Friday wrote a letter to the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers calling for immediate steps to save the life of Ganga Maya who has refused to eat or drink for the past 11 days.
The NHRC move follows the pressure it was put by the victims of the decade-long Maoist insurgency.
The conflict victims had picketed the NHRC central office and demanded the human rights body to save Ganga Maya and press the government into expediting the process to investigate the war- era cases.
Suman Adhikari, former chairperson of Conflict Victims Common Platform, said the government should act quickly to save Ganga Maya’s life before it is too late.
The commission has also written to the Nepal Police headquarters demanding what the latter was doing to arrest the persons accused in the case, as per the Supreme Court’s (SC) order handed down in December 2015.
Before writing to the government, the NHRC representatives Prakash Osti and Govinda Poudel had visited Ganga Maya at the Capital’s Bir Hospital to inquire about her condition.
Osti said the commission was serious about the demands raised by Ganga Maya.
One of Ganga Maya’s chief demands is arrest and prosecution of Chhabilal Poudel, the main accused in her son’s murder.
Poudel along with six others are walking free ever since the Chitwan District Court released them on bail and general date, the decision also upheld by the Hetauda Appellate Court in July 2014. Though the SC overturned the ruling in December 2015 and ordered the authorities to arrest the seven suspects and resume the murder trial, the apex court’s decree remains unenforced.
Two months after the Hetauda Appellate Court upheld the Chitwan District Court’s decision to release the suspects, Ganga Maya’s husband Nanda Prasad had died while staging hunger strike at Bir Hospital in September 2014. His body remains at the morgue of the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital. It was the decision of Ganga Maya and her eldest son Nur Prasad not to perform Nanda Prasad’s funeral unless the murderers of Krishna Prasad are brought to justice.
The apex court had overruled the Hetauda Appellate Court’s decision more than a year after Nanda Prasad’s death.
A native of Fujel village in Gorkha district, Krishna Prasad was reportedly abducted and murdered by the Maoist rebels on June 6, 2004, in Chitwan district.
The 18-year-old was visiting his grandparents in Chitwan when he was allegedly captured and killed by the insurgents on espionage charge.