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| Kathmandu, Wednesday December 18, 2002 Paush 03, 2059. |
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Maoist’ yesterday,
innocent today; ninth grader’s torturous ordeal
By Ghanashyam Ojha
KATHMANDU, Dec 17 Handcuffed and skinny, with
eyes filled with tears, 16-year-old Diwakar Adhikari, says he had a great desire to be an
army man in his life. "But I will never be an army man," he broke down sobbing,
looking at his poor, helpless father squatting in front of him.
The ninth grader studying at Mansing Dharma
Secondary School, Shangla Village Development Committee (VDC), Kathmandu, was at the same
time, constantly looking at the Supreme Court bench which later ordered his release.
A division bench consisting of the Supreme Court
Chief Justice, Kedar Nath Upadhyaya, and Justice Govinda Bahadur Shrestha were through the
court hearing of Adhikari who was arrested last year under the Terrorist and Destructive
Activities (Control and Prevention) Act (TADA).
According to Bhadragol Prison officials, the
formalities for Adhikari’s release will need some more time and he will be released
tomorrow. But it took hours for Adhikari to narrate the ordeal he had to go through during
his almost year-long detention.
Adhikari was trying to forget the mental and
physical torture meted out to him at the army headquarters, where he was forced to admit
‘his Maoist links.’
Narrating his ordeal there, the lad said that
the army men asked him to disclose the name of his Maoist leaders and their whereabouts.
On every denial of having any knowledge about the Maoists, they threw cold water all over
his naked body. He was frequently put into a pit and they threatened to take his life if
he did not admit of being a Maoist.
"They asked about my family members and
told me that they even would rape my small sister back at home after they knew I had a
sister at home," the boy stammered. "I was asked quite non-sense questions like
whether I ever had sexual relations with anyone."
On the fourth day, he was terrified when an
armyman asked him to put on an army uniform. He overheard that he would be taken to a
jungle and shot dead.
He knew that he would be killed and finally said
that he was a Maoist. "It was the only option to save my life," he recalls.
He vividly remembers the day a year back, when
two plain-clothes army men picked him up from his class, on charges of being a Maoist.
Speechless, Adhikari could not argue with the
army personnel as they said he was arrested under TADA, the Act promulgated after the
spell of emergency, to deal with Maoist related cases.
"They did not listen to me at all. They
told me they had to interrogate me," he said.
Narrating further, Adhikari says that while
being taken to the army headquarters, he remembered the incident that occured in his
school few days back. A group of Maoist students had come to his school and demanded a
cash amount of Rs 10,000 from the school headmaster.
The helpless headmaster did not comply with the
Maoist demand. "We were in our class and saw our headmaster being beaten and his face
smeared black and we came out to help him," Adhikari went on. The Maoists then fled
the scene.
After about two weeks they again visited the
school and repeated their demand. The headmaster, the boy said, gave Rs 10,000 to the
Maoists as demanded. They then asked the headmaster to distribute their membership forms
to the students.
"I was reluctant to take the membership
form but the headmaster asked me to follow their orders, in order to avert possible
punishment," he said.
"It was a usual day, I had forgotten about
the membership form like all my friends, I was studying in my class, when armymen took me
in their van, claiming that I was a Maoist," the boy continued.
The boy holds the VDC chairman Mani Bikram
Kunwar responsible for his arrest. "It must be Mani Bikram Kunwar, the VDC chairman
who is very powerful," the boy said. "Kunwar is known for his notoriety in the
village and usually tortures the villagers who go against him," the boy said.
"It was one of his cruel activities, as he had picked up a quarrel with my father a
few months back."
After his forced ‘confession’, he was
deported to Hanuman Dhoka, Kathmandu and later to Bhadragol Prison, on charges of being a
Maoist.
His parents were not given any information about
his whereabouts for almost 11 months after his arrest.
After about a year, the poor father Achyut Adhikari got a tip about his son’s
whereabouts. With the help of Centre to Assist and Protect Child Rights of Nepal
(CAP-CRON), a non-government organisation, a case was filed in the Supreme Court last
week. The Court today issued an order to release Adhikari.
The court verdict came following the writ
petition filed by an advocate Bal Krishna Mainali urging the court to immediately release
Adhikari as he was innocent.
Although the court ordered the immediate release
of Adhikari, he was not released today citing few technical problems. According to the
prison official, he would be released tomorrow.
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