ANNUAL REPORT 2004 The violation of basic human rights of the people in course of the present internal conflict has resulted from the warring parties’ impact on those aligned in no way with the conflict. There are incidents of forced and involuntary disappearances after arrest by the security forces. Only a few of them are brought into the judicial process, that too because of pressure from different quarters of the society. Other incidents include keeping in house arrest even beyond the expiry of the stipulated date, re-arresting people by using another warrant after keeping them 2-4 days in custody, meting out physical and mental torture in the military custody, killing in custody, and arresting people in the pretext of paying levies and providing other supports to Maoists. In several districts, it was found that the army have made use of schools and health posts. No attention has been given to pay compensation to the school and health offices—the establishments having great social importance— for using them for the security operations. Nor were there any efforts found towards shifting the army stations from the schools and health posts to elsewhere. Even after a long time since the District Security Committee had recommended paying compensation to the schools and health centres and shifting them elsewhere, the line Ministry seems to be noncooperative and irresponsible, as it has not properly implemented the decision.The incidents of Rukum and Bajura district headquarters are major examples. Only those who have access seem to have obtained the allowance facility provided as per the government’s policy decision to the displaced people; and the facility does not seem to have reached all the victims. Likewise, the state seems to be least bothered for improving the government jail, which were already in a dilapidated condition. Let alone the efforts to improve the adequate physical facilities. Physical reforms of the jails have been a distant dream. To worsen the things, the jails have faced the constraint of accommodating more inmates than their capacity. Hence, monitoring reports received so far have recommended for immediate prison and custody centre reforms. Human casualties on both sides of warring parties during routine deputation or operation clash between security forces and Maoists have been reported. Since the security forces abstain from taking the photograph of those killed in the clash, their name, address, and age may not be known and reported, so that identification problems tend to come up. Since there can be several persons having the same name, it is an imperative need that there is a provision and practice to take photographs of those killed in action so that their family can take home the dead bodies as per the law to perform their last rites. The absence of taking photographs and hence, of proper identification mechanism is likely to lead to an increase in the number of incidents of involuntary disappearances in future. It is high time that the recording of statement (Muchulka) and incident notes are duly created, post-mortem performed and photographs taken of the dead bodies in each incident. In most of the cases, Maoist activists resort to socket bomb attack and ambush blast targeting the security forces to badger, beleaguer and frighten the forces, and then instantly escape the scene. Following this, the security forces embarks upon search operations in the community of civilians by lining up them on the queue, and beating, torturing and arresting them indiscriminately. Such a practice is to blame for the civilians’ increasingly negative feeling about the security forces. 49