Reporters Without Borders today condemned escalating kidnappings of journalists after three were snatched in less than a week, two of whom were later freed.
The organisation has joined the Federation of Nepalese Journalists (FNJ) to urge the government to launch an all-out search for Birendra Sah, who was abducted in Bara district.
Sah, 34, correspondent for Nepal FM, Dristri Weekly and Avenues TV in Bara, central Nepal close to the border with India, was snatched in the Pipara Bazaar market on 5 October by a group of unknown kidnappers He is a member of the Press Chautari Nepal association and of an leftist political party.
The FNJ on 7 October sent a team to Bara to try to get the journalist released. Rallies were held in Kathmandu and Bara calling for his unconditional release and condemning growing insecurity.
"The authorities must identify those responsible for this series of kidnappings," the worldwide press freedom organisation said. It is deplorable that this is intended to create a climate of fear among journalists in the provinces."
"The Maoist party, some members of which have been suspected of involvement in some kidnappings cases, should also condemn these practices," the organisation said.
Ram Dev Das, editor of the magazine Terai Khabar Patrika, was kidnapped at the same time as Birendra Sah, but he was released a few hours later by his abductors, who beat him up. Dev Das told the FNJ that the kidnapping had been orchestrated by the Maoists, but he was too shocked to say anything more.
A local Maoist official, Kshetra Bahadur Shrestha Oeaneel, denied that his party had any involvement in the abduction. But local sources said that two Maoist leaders, Lal Bahadur Chaudhari Oesandeep and Kundan Phaujdar could be behind the kidnapping because they had a dispute with the journalist.
On 3 October, a reporter on the daily Abhiyan and on Mahakali FM, Pappu Gurund, was snatched in the early hours of the morning from his home in Dodhara district, western Nepal, along with his wife, Amrita Gurung. The couple were rescued after three days in captivity. Pappu Gurund said the kidnappers had threatened reprisals if he did not give up his job as a journalist. He believed that the Maoists were implicated in his abduction, which was denied by Maoist leader in Dodhara, Indra Rawat. He said that local residents had complained of financial misdealing on the part of the journalist.
Cadres of the Young Communist League (YCL, Maoist) attempted to kidnap Madhav Basnet, a journalist on the Dristi Weekly, from his office in Kathmandu on 14 August. They also threatened to kill him. The militants only left when the journalist called YCL co-ordinator, Ganesh Man Pun. Maoist cadres had also surrounded the newspaper’s main offices. The journalist left the Maoist movement three years earlier and according to the editor Shambhu Shrestha, the kidnap attempt was linked to his refusal to rejoin the party.
