MAINA MURDER FALLOUT:
SUNDAR KHANAL
KATHMANDU, Dec 12: Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal has instructed the Nepal Army to hand over Major Niranjan Basnet, one of the prime accused in the Maina Sunar case, to the Nepal Police, a source close to the PM said.
Nepal´s instruction came after consultations with Home Minister Bhim Rawal and Defence Minister Bidhya Bhandari and in the wake of Major Basnet´s arrest by Nepal Army Military Police from Tribhuvan International Airport on Saturday afternoon.
Basnet arrived on a Jet Airways flight from New Delhi at 2.45 p.m. He was taken into custody by military police around 3.30 p.m., a police officer on duty at TIA told Republica. Basnet had returned after being expelled from a UN peacekeeping mission in Chad.
“The PM has instructed the Nepal Army and the Nepal Police to ensure Basnet´s handover to civilian police,” the source said. The major in all likelihood will be handed over to police in Kavre on Sunday.
Military police waiting inside the TIA terminal building arrested Basnet. NA spokesman Ramindra Chhetri, however, claimed that he was not arrested but has been taken to army headquarters and placed under security.
Basnet is one of four Nepal Army officers who are prime accused in the disappearance, torture and murder of Maina Sunar, 15, in February 2004.
Following a Kavre District Court order there has been mounting pressure on the government to arrest Basnet. The order was issued on January 31, 2008. Subsequently, in September, the court ordered his suspension.
The Nepal Army´s decision came after intense pressure forced Basnet out of the UN mission. Amnesty International, among others, had written to the government to arrest Basnet once he arrived back in Nepal.
Meanwhile, a highly placed army officer had earlier said that Basnet would be arrested because there had been a lot of pressure on the army though he was “acquitted” by military court (in 2005). “But the government has not formally written to us about Major Basnet,” he had said then.
Republica reported last month that Major Basnet was serving in Chad, much to the embarrassment of the United Nations and its human rights commission, and its peacekeeping department in particular.
Maina was abducted from her home in Kavre district in February 2003 by soldiers from Paanchkhal barracks where the Nepal Army´s UN peacekeepers are trained. After a lot of national and international pressure, the then Royal Nepal Army was forced to admit the crime within its barracks and disclosed the names of the accused.
Army headquarters named Lt Col Bobby Khatri, Captain Amit Pun, Sunil Adhkari and Basnet (then a captain) as being involved in Maina´s torture and murder. The army had claimed that Pun and Adhikari were “detained for six months” (which could not be independently verified) and their promotion frozen; Khatri was ´demoted´ and Basnet ´acquitted´ by a military court.
While Khatri and Basnet continued to serve in the army following the crime (Khatri retired recently as a colonel), Pun and Adhikari quit the service and have left the country.
(Kiran Chapagain contributed to this report.)
Published on 2009-12-12 17:31:18 in Republica at http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=12804
RELATED NEWS:
Updates on Maina’s case: मैना हत्याका अभियुक्त मेजर बस्नेतलाई अदालतमा उपस्थित गराइने