YCL does it again; abducts, tortures college staffers

There is no end to Maoist atrocities. Once a thief, always a thief. This is another news about Maoists abduction and toture.

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Cadres of Maoist affiliated Young Communist League (YCL) abducted five persons including doctors and directors of the Biratnagar-based Nobel Medical College Sunday and physically tortured them for more than 14 hours in their custody before releasing them the next day.

Expressing alarm over the incident, Maoist leaders have said that action should be taken against those involved in the abduction and torturing of the six people. The party also made it clear that some of its cadres were misled by the disgruntled side of the college's management committee to take their vengeance against the six persons.

The abducted doctors and college authorities told a press meet organised in the capital city Tuesday that before releasing them their captors had threatened to kill them within hours if they disclosed anything about their abduction to the media.

"Last Saturday Maoist leader Barsha Man Pun (Ananta) had phoned us in Biratnagar and asked us to come to Kathmandu to settle the dispute regarding college shares with Prachanda and Baburam," Dr Gyanendra Giri, chairman of the college board of directors, told reporters at the conference, "Just as we came out of the airport on Sunday a group of about 30 Maoist cadres forcefully pushed us inside a jeep and took us away with them."

Dr Giri said they were then taken to Kamindanda of Kavre and after being blindfolded they were mercilessly beaten up from head to toe. "The YCL cadres did everything except kill us," he said. The other victims include members of the college's board of directors Navaraj Pandey, Umesh Pandey, Aditya Khanal and Janak Rijal. They were all freed at 4:30 am on Monday.

The victims claimed that the Maoists tortured them on the instruction of Dr Sunil Sharma, who had a dispute with board members regarding college shares after he was dimissed from membership of the board of directors as per a court verdict. They said YCL Valley chief "Sagar" and Maoist central leader "Ananta" were directly involved in their abduction.

According to Dr Giri, prior to the press meet Maoist chairman Prachanda and his deputy Dr. Baburam Bhattarai had apologised to them for the involvement of YCL cadres in the incident during their meeting at Maoist headquarters in the capital.

"Now we know that Sunil Sharma misled our cadres including Sagar. So we will take action against them," Dr Giri quoted Prachanda as saying.

According to Dr Giri, Bhattarai had requested not to disclose the affair to media and committed himself to supporting the victims. nepalnews.com ag Nov 21 07