Man who stood up to Nepal’s security forces dies without justice

KATHMANDU - A man who singlehandedly battled the state and security forces relentlessly for seven years to free his son passed away without getting justice.

Jai Kishore Labh, a lawyer in Dhanusha district in Nepal’s Terai plains, staked his life filing complaints against security forces to free his 23-year-old son, Sanjeev Karna, who was spirited away by security forces in 2003, when the Maoist insurgency was at its peak, along with four other students from a picnic.

The youngster was never seen again and security forces denied any hand in his disappearance despite evidence to the contrary and repeated calls by human rights organisations for punitive action.

Labh, who also battled a weak heart, risked his life to keep up a crusade for his son’s release. He died in a Dhanusha hospital of heart failure Saturday.

“The case has become an emblematic one for many victims and human rights defender organisations,” said Richard Bennett, chief of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Nepal.

“Labh was a sensitive and determined man who, despite health problems that were almost certainly exacerbated by the anguish of his loss and his outrage at the ongoing impunity, fought courageously to obtain justice for his son and others who disappeared.”

When the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, visited Nepal last year, she visited Janakpur town in Dhanusha and met Labh and other family members of the disappeared. She also met the police superintendent in Dhanusha and urged him to complete the investigation into the disappearance of the five students.

However, seven years after the incident and four years after the restoration of democracy in Nepal, the fate of Sanjeev and hundreds of others whose disappearance was caused by the state or the then Maoist guerrillas remains unknown despite repeated requests for clarification by their families and human rights organizations.