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From January 13 issue of The Kathmandu Post. This news was originally posted in SEBS forum by Raby 255B.

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“Armymen” thrash rights activist:

Barely 24 hrs after a journalist was assaulted, a human rights activist has fallen prey in the hands of the security personnel for asking the identity cards of the armymen in civil clothes knocking his doors at the midnight.
Dinesh Prasai, coordinator of the Collective Campaign for Peace(COCAP), a human rights organization, was thrashed by security personnel at his residence in Banasthali on Monday night.

According to prasai,five people giving an impression of gangsters, came to jis residence introducing themselves as security men, and asked him to open the door.Prasai refused to open the door without seeing their identity cards.
“Instead of shoeing their IDs, they took out the guns and pointed at me”, Prasai said.

A scared Prasai, bolted the door and slipped into the kitchen to go our through the back doo.The so-called security personnel immediately broke the door, and entered into his room and began hurling blows at him.

“Even when they were beating me I was asking for ID cards, but they continued thrashing me,” said Prasai.
After about hanlf an hour of feverish scuffle, the security personnel showed him the ID cards, covering the namens with their hands.

After beating him,the security personnel tried to ustify their act.”they said they beat me becaused they thought I was hiding Maoists at my place,” he said at a press conference today.

Prasai,on the other hand connects this incident to his recently embittered relationship with Dr Bhogendra Sharman, Chief of Center for the Victims of Torture(CVICT) and Dr Arjun Karki, chief of the Rural Reconstruction Nepal(RRN) as he had published an article on financial irregularities in NGOs on 14th Dec, in Nepal Samachar Patra, a vernacular today. “After the publication of the article the gangsters coordinated by Dr Sharma and Dr karki called me and issued death threats,” Prasai told the journalists.

He said that he still had a suspicion that the so-called army personnel who assaulted him may have connections with the doctor duo. Colonel Deepak gurung,spokesperson of the Royal Nepal Army(RNA), however refuted such charges and said that the army personnel do not enter into any civilian’s residence in such a manner.”the victim can file a case at the concerned authority with the reports of his wounds; we are aready to proceed with the action.” Gurung added.

When asked, whether the army personnel should be banned from moving in civil dress,Col gurung said,”Army personnel can move in any appropriate uniform to control violence”

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