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They reported the “disappearance” to the ICRC and various human rights organizations,
and petitioned the King, but have received no further official information. 29
At around 2 a.m. on November 12, 2003 (Kartik 26, 2060), about twenty armed RNA
soldiers in civilian clothes came to Thakre VDC-2, Dhading. They arrested Navaraj
Thapa, thirty-year-old shop owner, in a small guesthouse in the same village, which they
found with the help of the man’s younger brother. They also seized his motorcycle, a
Hero Honda Splendor (Ba.9 Pa 4537).
The family went to NHRC and the ICRC, but was unable to obtain any information.
The family said that Thapa was never involved in politics, but that other villagers,
envying their relative prosperity, falsely accused him of lending his motorcycle to the
Maoists for the transportation of weapons.
The family also heard from one of the released detainees that Thapa was held along with
them at the Chhauni barracks for the first several days.
Navaraj Thapa had been arrested before, on October 1, 2003 (Ashoj 14, 2060), along
with his younger brother. Both men were then brought to the Bhairabnath Gulm
(Maharajgunj) army barracks in Kathmandu. The army released Navaraj eight days later,
and his younger brother spent another seven months in detention, first in Bhairabnath,
and then in the 6 No Bahini Bareni army barracks. 30
At 4 a.m. on the morning of November 12, 2003 (Kartik 26, 2060), just hours after
Navaraj Thapa’s arrest, a group of eight or nine soldiers, one of them uniformed and the
others in plainclothes, came to the home of forty-nine-year-old Ram Prasad Acharya, a
businessman who lived in Naubise VDC of Dhading district, on the main Kathmandu-
Pokhara road. Acharya owned a bus that plied local roads, and was in the process of
building a small motel on his property along the main road. The soldiers woke up the
workers sleeping in the front of the construction site and ordered them to direct them to
Acharya’s room. When the soldiers located Acharya, they locked his wife in the bedroom
and took Acharya with them. Acharya’s wife was only freed when villagers came to find
out what had happened the next morning.
29
Human Rights Watch interview with a relative of Indra Bahadur Aryal, Kathmandu, October 11, 2004.
30
Human Rights Watch interview with two relatives of Navaraj Thapa, Dhading, September 19, 2004.
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