Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who chairs the CPN (Maoist Centre), the party that waged a decade-long people’s war, has refuted allegations that he used child combatants during the insurgency.

Writing a response to a writ petition filed at the Supreme Court claiming that child combatants were used during the Maoist insurgency, Dahal refuted the allegations and said that no document of the peace process has used the term ‘child soldiers’.

Former child combatants Lenin Bista, Krishna Prasad Dangal and five others—who were labelled ‘disqualified’ for integration into the Nepal Army by the United Nations Missions in Nepal (UNMIN) during the verification process in 2007—had filed the petition claiming that they were used as child soldiers and should be paid appropriate compensations. They also demanded punishment for Dahal and another leader Baburam Bhattarai, who was second-in command of the then Maoist party.

Bista is currently the chairman of the Discharged People’s Liberation Army Nepal.

Attorney General Dinmani Pokharel said the prime minister’s written response has been registered at the Supreme Court on Monday via the Office of the Attorney General.

But, according to Bista, former prime minister Baburam Bhattarai, who currently leads the Nepal Samajbadi Party, is yet to receive the court’s letter as the court sent it to his ancestral residence in Gorkha district.

The petitioners have claimed that the Maoist leaders committed war crimes by using children in the armed conflict. They demanded an investigation through a tribunal, just as was done in Rwanda and Yugoslavia. “We demand an order to suspend Dahal [from his duties] as prime minister until the conclusion of the investigation,” according to one of the points in the petition.

On May 30, the apex court administration had initially refused to register the petition. But, later on June 9, a bench of Justice Ananda Mohan Bhattarai ordered the court administration to register it. The petition was then registered on June 11.

During the 2007 verification process for army integration conducted by UNMIN, thousands of Maoist fighters, including Bista, had been disqualified for being minors.

Among the 4,008 combatants who did not qualify for integration, 2,973 were verified as minors while the remaining 1,035 had joined the Maoist ‘People’s Liberation Army’ after the first ceasefire of May 26, 2006—six months before the peace deal was signed.

The government had provided between Rs500,000 and Rs800,000 each to the combatants who chose voluntary retirement. But those who were disqualified didn’t get any substantial support, except for a few thousand rupees from the United Nations.

Though the petitioners have said Dahal and Bhattarai used child combatants during the Maoist insurgency and are therefore liable to punishment as per international law, Dahal claimed that the petitioners have accepted that UNMIN termed them “minors” and not “child soldiers”.

He said no document related to the peace process including the Comprehensive Peace Accord, the Agreement on Monitoring of the Management of Arms and Armies, the Interim Constitution, the 2015 Constitution and other authentic documents, accept the use of child combatants.

The prime minister, who is currently in Italy to attend the United Nations Food Systems Summit, has also claimed that the government has been making efforts to provide necessary economic assistance to the Maoist combatants as per the Comprehensive Peace Accord and other agreements of the peace process, which is something the petitioners have also acknowledged.

According to Dahal, the government has presented a bill to amend the Enforced Disappearances Enquiry, Truth and Reconciliation Commission Act to take the peace process to a logical end.

The prime minister said that all sections of society should help ensure the logical conclusion of the peace process instead of creating hurdles towards that goal.

Besides Dahal and Bhattarai, the writ petition has made the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Women, Children and Senior Citizens, the National Human Rights Commission and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, among others, as defendants.

The petitioners have stated that they have yet to get justice more than 16 years after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. They have demanded that they be identified as child combatants and compensated accordingly.