CCPR/C/112/D/2111/2011
in favour of Mr. Tripathi. The author argued that her husband had been illegally detained by
the security forces and requested the Court to order his release.
2.6
On 30 September and 1 October 2003, the Police, the Army and the Ministry of
Home Affairs, among other authorities, informed the Supreme Court that Mr. Tripathi had
not been arrested or detained by them. In the following weeks, other authorities also stated
that they had not detained him. In October 2003, the author also reported her husband’s
arbitrary detention to the National Human Rights Commission and requested its help in
securing his release.
2.7
On 13 November 2003, the Ministry of Defence, without providing any detail or
explanation, informed the Supreme Court that, from the information available, it found that
Gyanendra Tripathi was not in the custody of the Army.
2.8
On 26 January 2004, the Supreme Court quashed the writs of habeas corpus
submitted by the author and Mr. S.P. It stated that they had failed to show that Mr. Tripathi
was detained or in whose custody he was; that for a search warrant to be issued, the
applicants must help the Court by identifying the place or agency to be searched; and that
only after the location of the detainee had been identified, could the application for habeas
corpus be reissued. The Court concluded that it was not necessary to carry out further
investigations.
2.9
In May 2006, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights in Nepal issued a report of an investigation into arbitrary detention, torture and
disappearance at the Maharajgunj barracks, Kathmandu, in 2003 and 2004. The report
included Mr. Tripathi’s name in a list of disappeared persons and stated that agents of the
Bhairabnath battalion had detained several members of UNNISU-R; that they were held
incommunicado; and that the Army had denied to their families or other authorities that
they had been detained. The report also stated that Mr. Tripathi was alive and under the
control of the battalion at least until 20 December 2003.3
2.10 On 4 July 2006, the National Human Rights Commission found that Mr. Tripathi
had been arrested, kept in the Maharajgunj barracks and disappeared by the Bhairabnath
battalion. It recommended that the Government bring him under the protection of the law
and that those responsible for such crimes be prosecuted. However, no action has been
taken by the authorities in that regard.
2.11 On 1 June 2007, the Supreme Court issued a decision concerning another writ of
habeas corpus filed by Mr. R.D. who, acting on his own initiative, additionally included as
petitioners Mr. Tripathi and other persons who had been arbitrarily detained by agents of
the State between January 1999 and February 2004. The Court stated that they had been
illegally arrested and forcibly disappeared by security personnel, and ordered the
Government to take immediate measures to ensure accountability by, inter alia, establishing
a commission of inquiry, criminalizing enforced disappearance, investigating and
3
4
OHCHR report (note 2 above), pp. 48–49. The author also points out that, according to copies of
documentation enclosed with her communication, Krishna K.C., who was also kept in those barracks,
declared before the Patan Appellate Court that he saw her husband in the Maharajgunj barracks in or
around December 2003; that on 20 December 2003, a group of detainees, including Mr. Tripathi,
were taken by the Army to an unknown place to be killed; and that those detainees were never seen
again. In a written testimony given to OHCHR-Nepal in February 2007, he also mentioned that he
had heard rumours that Mr. Tripathi had been killed in the Shivapuri barracks. Likewise, Jit Man
Basnet, another previous inmate of the barracks, published a book entitled 258 Dark Days, in which
he described in detail the manner in which the author’s husband was tortured by the authorities and
noted that soldiers had told him that he had died while he was immersed in a drum full of water, as
part of the torture inflicted on him.