Major defies SC-appointed panel’s summons

A major of the Nepali Army who was summoned by a Supreme Court-appointed panel investigating a case of four missing persons has been defying the summons.

“Major Purushottam Bikram KC is yet to show up though we have requested the secretary of the Ministry of Defence Bishnu Dutta Uprety several times in this regard,” an official of the panel said.

The panel, headed by appellate court judge Lokendra Mallik, had written to the Defence Ministry asking it to direct the major, who is the head of the No 1 Bahini of Field Gulm in Thankot barracks, to give his statement in the case. The panel is probing how and under what circumstances four persons — Bipin Bhandari, Rajendra Dhakal, Dil Bahadur Rai and Chakra Bahadur Katuwal — went missing. The panel had found clues that the four were detained by the army, but was not heard of after that. The panel recently found a skeleton in Okhaldhunga, which the panel says is that of Katuwal. A DNA test is underway to confirm this.

Security persons had arrested Bhandari and Rai in 1999 and Dhakal in 1995 and detained them in army barracks for a few years.