NHRC Seeking Closure: Forensic experts, human rights activists and police investigate alleged graves of the disappeared in Shivapuri earlier this year

Last year Nepal's National Human Rights Commission received a tip-off from the locals in the Shivapuri National Park north of Kathmandu about the location of where the 43 disappeared from the Bhairabnath and Yuddha Bhairab Battalion were buried.

The Alle area was cordoned off and the NHRC, with a team of forensic experts and human rights activists started investigating. They combed the jungles and recovered pieces of clothing, sacks, charred wood and plastic bags.

Two months later Finnish experts Helena Ranta of University of Helsinki and Pekka Saukko from the University of Turku were brought in to further analyse the samples. When the tests on coal-like black substances and black soil brought no results, NHRC asked that the samples be sent for further tests.

The report of these further tests were released by the NHRC in Kathmandu this week, and the Finnish experts state that the remains of at least one male were found in the objects they collected in Shivapuri last year.

"From the six different samples we could extract DNA evidence from only one of the samples," said Ranta. The NHRC has ruled out the possibility of a mass grave at the site, but says it wants to investigate the area further.

Mandira Shrama of Advocacy Forum says the probe will pave the way to investigate other suspected sites in the future, but she is worried that the issue will fade from the headlines. "The investigation has to be detailed,
so that the issue is kept alive," she says.

In an effort to build local forensic capacity for future investigations, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has brought in two experts from Geneva, Ute Hofmeister and Oran Finegan, who have been training NHRC staff, Nepal Police, local forensic experts, medical students and human rights activists in exhumation procedures, the collection of ante-mortem data and other skills relating to the identification of human remains.

"It is not clear how many bodies need to be identified, but now that that the conflict is over the need to develop appropriate skills and build local capacity for identification is imperative," says Hofmeister, who has worked on exhumations in Bosnia and Latin America.

She adds: "Society may not be ready but the loved ones want to know because they never forget."

Under international humanitarian law, the authorities are responsible for determining what happened to those who went missing during an armed conflict. Accurate information is impossible without forensic expertise. Identification and evidence is extremely important not just for prosecution but also for humanitarian purposes.

Ranta says that forensic evidence has to be dealt with very carefully and has to be done by experts. Dealing with the past is one of the ways the authorities can build confidence amongst people. She says, "These issues keep coming back and society, government and people will have to deal with them one day. There's no use trying to shove them under the rug."

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