'Make status of people made to disappear public'

By TRN Online, Kathmandu, June 18: Family members of those made to disappear by the security forces during the decade long people's war and the human rights defenders have demanded immediate establishment of the whereabouts of the disappeared.

Speaking at an interaction here today they blamed the governments since the peace process to date for the failure to provide justice to the families of the disappeared and punish the culprits.

"Some human rights defenders pick up one or two issues and make a mountain out of molehill. We have cases of thousands, and they rarely raise our issues, issues of the victim families of those made to disappear by the state security forces during the people's war," said Nisha Neupane, daughter of Danda Pani Neupane, speaking at the interaction entitled 'the issues about making public the people made to disappear and the peace process.'

Ek Raj Bhandari, father of Bipin who was made to disappear from Kathmandu 20 years ago on this day, expressed despair that there was slim chance of making public the whereabouts of the disappeared given present political deadlock.

"Even then I do demand as always that the status of the disappeared should be made public as soon as possible," he said.

Human rights defenders Charan Prasai, Dr. Sundar Mani Dixit, Prof. Kapil Shrestha and political leaders such as Ram Kumari Jhakri of CPN (Unified Socialist), Madhav Dhungel of CPN (UML) Lekhnath Neupane of CPN (Maoist Center) pointed at the need to make public the status of the disappeared and provide justice to the victim families at the earliest.