A medical assistant forcibly arrested and tortured.
FACTS
On 7 April 2011, Mr. Prashanta Pandey, a medical assistant at a medical shop in Jhulinipur, Rupandehi, was forcibly arrested by three police officers from Rupandehi District Police Office without any warrant for the arrest. Mr. Pandey was taken to Lumbini Zonal Police Office, where he was repeatedly interrogated.
Mr. Pandey was subjected to torture and ill-treatment, including beatings with batons and sticks, kicking and punching, and death threats. He was also made to urinate on an electric heater, kept blindfolded, and made to stand for 50 hours, with no food, water, or medical treatment in custody by the police officials.
Between 7 and 13 April 2011, Mr. Pandey was kept incommunicado. Eventually, he was forced to sign a confession about his involvement in the planning and execution of a bomb blast of 27 March 2011. On 13 April 2011, Mr. Pandey was shown in public, labeled as a terrorist and a murderer.
Read more: here
PROCEDURE
On 8 April 2011, Mr. Pandey’s mother filed a missing person’s report in the Rupandehi District Police Office. The Police denied her son was kept in custody. On the same day, she also submitted a complaint to the office of the National Human Rights Commission in Butwal to intervene to establish the whereabouts of Mr. Pandey. However, the Commission took no took no formal steps on this. On 8 May 2011, Mr. Pandey was brought before the Rupandehi District Court (RDC). On 11 May 2011, the Court ordered to keep him in pretrial detention. Mr. Pandey was held in pretrial detention at the District Prison in Bhairahawa for a year until his trial started.
On 13 June 2012, the RDC considered the forced confession valid, and no investigation into his claim of being subjected to torture and forced confession were initiated. On 16 October 2012, the Terai Human Rights Defenders Alliance submitted an urgent appeal on behalf of Mr. Pandey to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. On 12 December 2012, Mr. Pandey’s mother filed a complaint on his behalf before RDC, stating that the police had tortured Mr. Pandey.
However, the registrar refused to file the complaint following the 35 days statutory limit provisioned under Compensation relating to Torture Act, 1996. On 24 January 2013, Mr. Pandey lodged a complaint in the Supreme Court seeking for compensation and requesting an exemption from the statutory limit being in consistent to the gravity of the offense. The Supreme Court ruled no decision. On 13 February 2014, he also submitted a formal request to the NHRC to investigate and reparation for acts of torture.
Mr. Pandey submitted the case to the Human Rights Committee on 20 February 2014. On 20 February 2014, TRIAL International submitted an individual communication on behalf of Mr. Pandey to the Human Rights Committee (HRC). The HRC issued its decision on the case on 30 October 2018. It found violations of fair trail rights, right against torture and cruel, inhuman degrading treatment, liberty and security of a person, among others.
Read the decision: English
RECOMMENDATIONS
The Committee recommended that Nepal conduct a thorough and effective investigation into Mr. Pandey’s allegation of torture and provide information, prosecute, try and punish those responsible and make them public and expunge criminal record as connected to the complaint, ensure psychological, rehabilitation and medical treatment made available, ensure criminalization and appropriate remedies for torture and enforced disappearance based on statutory limit for compensation in accordance with international standards and provide Mr. Pandey with compensation and appropriate measures of satisfaction for the violations suffered, including a public apology.
| Investigation into the facts of the case, prosecution and sanctions of the perpetrators. | |
| Nepal has failed to adopt measures with regards to the investigation, prosecution and sanction of those responsible. | |
| Information to the authors about the investigation of the case | |
| No information on the progress of the investigation has been is provided to the authors. | |
| Expunge the author’s criminal record as connected to the present complaint | |
| To the author’s knowledge, his criminal record has not been amended to date, the author is not informed about the expunge of criminal record. | |
| Provision of adequate compensation | |
| The family of Mr. Pandey has not received any form of compensation for the harm suffered. | |
| Appropriate measures of satisfaction | |
| The author has not received is not provided with any measure on satisfaction, including the public apology asked by Mr. Pandey. | |
| Adequate psychological rehabilitation and medical treatment | |
| No measures have been adopted to implement the Committee’s recommendation regarding the provision of adequate psychological rehabilitation and medical treatment. | |
| Amend legislations on torture and enforced disappearance and guarantees of non-repetition. | |
| Albeit the new Criminal Code (entered into force in 2018) codifies the autonomous offences of torture and enforced disappearance, the definitions of the crimes enshrined therein and the corresponding regulation – concerning, for instance, statutes of limitation and compensation – remains at odds with international law. No relevant amendment to the Nepalese domestic criminal legislation made. | |
| Translation and dissemination of the decision | |
| There is no information on any No authority has updated about the steps undertaken to translate in Nepali the Committee’s Views and disseminate them. |
Note these are unofficial gradings as the Human Rights Committee has not yet commented on implementation.
Efforts for Implementation
- A Public Interest Litigation filed at the Supreme Court of Nepal demanding the amendment of statute of limitation on the cases of torture, citing the HRC decision of Pandey v Nepal July 2020