Ignoring Shobharani’s pleas, the soldiers dragged her husband into the street, shouting accusations of his involvement with the Maoist rebels waging a bloody insurgency against the state.[break]
“I told them he was just a simple farmer but they insisted he was a Maoist,” said Shobharani, 35, who wished to be identified only by her first name.
“I ran after them with my lamp because it was very dark but one of the soldiers just blew out my lamp and told me I must go home,” she said in her village in Nepal’s western Bardiya district, a former Maoist stronghold.
“They didn’t even let him put on any clothes before they dragged him away.”
Rights groups say more than 240 people disappeared from Bardiya during the decade-long war between Nepal’s Maoist former guerrillas and the state, most of them taken by army or police.
Across the country, the government has recorded more than 1,200 cases of people forcibly taken by the army, police or Maoist guerrillas.
It says it believes the true figure to be higher, with some relatives reluctant to come forward for fear of retribution.
But more than three years after the war ended, no official investigations have been conducted and no one has yet been prosecuted for human rights violations committed during the war.
“The situation in Bardiya is illustrative of an environment of impunity in Nepal,” said Richard Bennett, head of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Nepal.
“Bardiya is not the only district where serious human rights violations including disappearances and killings took place,” Bennett said.
“It is one which was quite badly affected, but the internal conflict in Nepal took place in most of the country, and there were human rights violations committed everywhere.”
The long-promised establishment of a commission of inquiry into wartime disappearances has been delayed by political wrangling, leaving many of those affected with no compensation for the loss of the family’s main breadwinner.
But most say that the hardest thing is not knowing whether their loved ones are dead or alive.
Asarphi, 55, is convinced the soldiers that took her husband from their village in Bardiya killed him that night.
But she has spent the six years since he disappeared desperately seeking confirmation of his fate.
“I believe the soldiers shot him because they dragged him to the schoolyard and then I heard gunshots,” she said.
“But I need to know for sure. I have traveled to Kathmandu twice to try to get answers, but have got nowhere.”
Like many relatives, Asarphi has received 100,000 rupees (1,400 dollars) from the government in what it terms “interim relief” given to families pending investigations.
But she says she has spent the entire amount on looking for the truth about what happened to her husband.
Bagiram Chowdary, who runs a pressure group in Bardiya that helps victims’ families, says such problems are common.
“For the relatives it is always better to know,” said Chowdary.
“Not knowing leads to big problems, both socially and financially. Without a death certificate, land rights cannot be transferred, and with no income source, many families struggle to feed themselves.”
More than three years after the war ended, deep suspicions persist, and rights groups say Nepal can achieve lasting peace only if the abuses committed during the war are investigated and the perpetrators punished.
In 2007, Nepal’s Supreme Court ordered the government to form a commission of inquiry into conflict-related disappearances “without delay.”
But a draft bill on the issue has been delayed by the opposition Maoists, who have prevented parliament from sitting since their government fell in May.
Peace and Reconstruction Minister Rakam Chemjong said the government was “fully committed” to investigating wartime disappearances.
“If parliament reopens, the commission will form as soon as possible,” he said.
The OHCHR’s Bennett warned that any delay could further damage Nepal’s fragile peace.
“As in any conflict, a great deal of suffering was caused, and if that is not addressed then those wounds may never heal,” he said.
“I would say it is crucial for durable peace in Nepal that these kinds of human rights violations are properly addressed.”
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