Miscellaneous
SC revokes appeals court bail for accused
The Supreme Court has revoked the decision of the Hetauda Appellate Court to release on bail Chhabilal Poudel, an accused in the 2004 murder of Krishna Prasad Adhikari of Fujel, Gorkha.The Supreme Court has revoked the decision of the Hetauda Appellate Court to release on bail Chhabilal Poudel, an accused in the 2004 murder of Krishna Prasad Adhikari of Fujel, Gorkha.
A bench of Justices Girish Chandra Lal and Deepak Raj Joshi on Monday issued an order to take the trial forward by remanding the accused in judicial custody.
Ganga Maya Adhikari, mother of the deceased, had lodged an application at the Apex court seeking justice after the Chitwan District Court and the Hetauda Appeals Court ordered Poudel’s release.
Krishna Prasad, a resident of Fujel village in Gorkha district, was allegedly abducted and murdered by the rebel Maoists in the final years of their insurgency. His father Nanda Prasad Adhikari died while on a hunger strike in September last year.
Ganga Maya, widow of Nanda Prasad, has been refusing to perform his last rites demanding the murderers of her son be brought to justice. His body remains unclaimed at the morgue in the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, Maharajgunj.
“The verdict has rekindled our hope for justice,” said rights activist Charan Prasai. He said that the human rights community would ask Ganga Maya to break her fast.
Advocate Om Aryal, the applicant’s lawyer, said they have enough evidence to prove his role in the crime. “He was chief of the [Maoist] Village People’s Government. We have eyewitness accounts to prove him guilty in the case,” he said.
However, defence lawyer Satish Mainali argued that Poudel was never in the Maoist parallel government. “The verdict, in fact, is a miscarriage of criminal justice system as there is no immediate evidence to even slightly indicate his involvement in the incident,” he said.
According to him, eyewitnesses had described that the murderers had brought Krishna Prasad on a bike to the forest and shot him dead, while Poudel was a retired teacher.
Aryal, however, argued that the witnesses were intimidated by the Maoists while recording their statement. “They might be threatened again but justice should be served,” he said.