Girl's remains found a year after soldiers took her away
BY MADHAV DHUNGEL
DHADING, Jan 15 - At midnight of July 15, 2004, someone knocked on the door of Bhairav Bahadur Sapkota's house in Chapagoan, Jeewanpur-1, Dhading. The 71-year-old man recalls, "Someone asked whether my surname was Sapkota. Then he said they were army personnel and asked me to open the door."
As soon as the old man opened the door, an arm was locked around his neck and someone charged, "You hide your son and present yourself to us?"
Bhairav's youngest son was fast asleep. Army personnel inquired about him. Bhairav identified him. "You sleep peacefully after helping your elder brother escape? Come here," one of them shouted.
Bhairav's eldest son Bhakta Bahadur lives in another house. His middle son Shiva, 27, disappeared after being arrested by security personnel from his rented room in Kirtipur on November 5, 2003. Bhairav and Bhakta Bahadur were there when Shiva was taken away. Someone called Tara dai asked them to call cell number - 9851051428 - the following day. Shiva's whereabouts is still unknown.
Remembering that incident, Bhairav feared that they would take his youngest son as well. "You took my middle son. It has been nine months and I still don't know if he's alive. Will you kill this son as well? If you want to kill him, kill him here," Bhairav demanded.
Instead, the army men went toward a cot where Bhairav's two grand-daughters were sleeping. One of them was Bhakta Bahadur's daughter Sarala. Sarala, 15, was spending the night at her grandparents' house because it was too late by the time she finished her work in the field to return home.
"They pulled the quilt covering her and asked her if her name was Sarala," the old man recalls. "She was so scared that she was speechless. Even I didn't know that her name was Sarala. I used to address her with her pet names Kali and Sani. I told security personnel that she was not Sarala. I only learnt later that she was called Sarala at school."
It was clear that they were taking her with them. Her grandmother and cousin wept and protested, but the soldiers tied Sarala's hands and took her with them saying that they would inform the family in a few days.
The family was never informed.
Bhairav believes the soldiers must have come from Baireni barracks. The family inquired at the barracks, but in vain.
That same night, at 1:30 a.m., a few men had knocked at Hom Bahadur Rana's house in the village and asked for spades. There were over a dozen girls in the house who had gathered to celebrate the festival of Shrawan Sankranti the next day. Fearing for their safety, Rana threw out a spade from the window.
Four days later, Rana learnt that soldiers had taken Sarala from Bhairav Sapkota's house. He also heard that there was a strong smell of decomposing human flesh in a nearby field. Out of fear, he kept quiet.
On July 26, 2004, the family registered a complaint at the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). Sarala's father himself was arrested on March 30, 2005, and released after 52 days, following a court order. After his release, Bhakta Bahadur decided to expedite the search for Sarala. The widower, who has a 10-year-old son and another daughter aged 12, also filed a complaint at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
On December 7, 2005, Bhakta Bahadur came to know of the odor of decomposing human flesh in the nearby field. He went to the field to see if he could find anything. The odor was there, but he couldn't trace the source.
On December 22, two men from ICRC arrived in Jeewanpur. Bhakta Bahadur told them about the smell. The ICRC team went to the field with the villagers. Sear a thorny bush, they saw a place where grass did not grow. When the villagers dug under the spot they recovered the skeletal human remains of Sarala, distinguishable only by her clothes.
On January 11, an NHRC team arrived with Dr Pramod Shrestha and Dr Harihar Osti, both from TUTH's Forensic Department. The remains has been brought to TUTH.
While the team exhumed Sarala's body, a large crowd gathered on the field. Bhairav Bahadur was sitting 40 meters away from the place where his granddaughter was buried. "This is the rule of demons. If humans were ruling us, this sin would not have been committed," he said.
The corpse was wrapped in a kurta-sulwar. Bhakta Bahadur identified the clothes, and a pair of slippers as belonging to his daughter. He even identified the teeth and the rubber band that tied her hair.
Villagers say that though Sarala had attended Maoist programs a couple of times, she was not a Maoist. According to Prakash Pandit, teacher at Jyoti Secondary School, she left school after failing in the seventh grade. Her teachers remember her as a polite girl. Keshav Prasad Acharya, another teacher, said that he was sure this sin was committed by Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) soldiers.
Children have stopped going to the field. Saraswati Pandey, 11, says that she used to go to the field with her friends to play. "Now I am scared. I won't go there," she said.
Dhan Kumari Regmi, 70, said the incident is like a nightmare. "The sinner has to suffer a lot more than what Sarala suffered," she cursed.
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