The United Nations has welcomed the Kavre District Court’s Sunday’s verdict in which the bench convicted three former Nepal Army officials of killing Maina Sunuwar during the insurgency.

“This is a significant step towards ensuring victims’ rights to justice and providing redress for those who have lost loved ones during the decade-long conflict,” the UN said in a statement on Tuesday.

The court on Sunday sentenced Bobby Khatri, Amit Pun and Sunil Adhikari, who were stationed at the Birendra Peace Operations Training Centre in Panchkhal, Kavre at the time of the incident, to 20 years in jail.

This only the second ever conviction linked to crimes committed during Nepal’s decade-long armed conflict which ended in 2006 after a peace deal between then Maoist rebels and the government.

“The United Nations calls upon the government, in accordance with Nepali law, to implement the court’s ruling without delay, as well as court judgments in all other conflict-era cases,” the UN added.  “The UN counts on the government to promptly implement the Supreme Court’s ruling of February 2015 by amending the transitional justice legislation in accordance with the judgment and international standards.”

Mother vows to continue her struggle for justice

The family of Maina Sunuwar, who was killed in detention of Nepal Army in 2004, expressed their dis-satisfaction over the acquittal of then Army Major Niranjan Basnet and the court’s ruling to remit life imprisonment to five-year term to three convicted ex-NA officials.

Sunuwar’s mother Devi vowed to continue her struggle for justice, saying that attempts were being made to remit the punishment to the convicts and acquit one of the defendants. “I think, conspiracies are being hatched to lessen the punishment to the convicts,” Devi told the Post. She visited the Kavre District Court on Tuesday to inquire about the court’s verdict and made her remarks on the ‘opinion book’. Court Registrar Krishna Prasad Adhikari assured her to provide a copy of the full verdict within three days, she said.  

A group of the NA personnel on February 17, 2004 had detained Sunuwar, then 15, from her home in Kharelthok for her alleged links to the then rebel Maoists. She was murdered after torture in the Army barracks.