After five days of isolation and torture Krishna Sen died, the blows, boots, and lathis of the men in uniform raining down upon him. He was kept captive in the highest building in Mahendra Police Club, next to its Judo Hall. His hands were bound behind his back, and he was repeatedly asked to say “This country belongs to the king.”

Sen had been caught in Naya Baneswor on 20 May 2002 and been in captivity in the Police Club since. Journalist Sangeeta Khadka, who saw Sen at 2 AM on 21 May, said, “After some hours of torture, Sen was vomiting, his arms and legs were broken.” Khadka says two policemen were propping Sen up against a wall as a jackbooted DSP Bikram Thapa kicked him repeatedly. (more…)

Every day, tens of thousands of commuters, civil servants, diplomats travel up and down Maharajganj. The Foreign Ministry and Teaching Hospital are across the street. Yet, just over the wall inside Mohan Shumshere’s former palace at Laxmi Nibas, which served as the headquarters of the Bhairabnath Battalion, thousands of prisoners were detained, tortured, and exterminated between 2003-2005. This was a concentration camp in the heart of the city. Bhairabnath showed how easily human rights groups, activists, and even international humanitarian organisations could be kept in the dark about the military’s dirty secret. (more…)