The repression of innocent Bhutanese refugees by the Royal Bhutan Army (RBA), which has entered their original homeland, continues unabated. The detention of Shantiram Acharya, a registered refugee of Beldangi-II, Sector 'D' Hut No. 85, along with three other Bhutanese refugee youths, on the fake charge of being a Maoist militia on January 16, is one of the latest subjugations of the Druk oligarchy.

Security
The online version of the Bhutanese regime's mouthpiece, Kuensel, initially made it public only on January 24. It is learnt that those youths were arrested at Tashilakha in Chhuka district (south- west Bhutan) by the RBA. It claims that the detainees clandestinely entered Chhukha dzongkhag (district) to survey the security deployment of the Tala project. But during a 10-minute telephone inquiry on January 25, Devi Acharya, his elder brother, strongly denied his brother was involved with the Bhutanese Maoists. I was also informed that Shantiram has been undergone metal depression since the last two months.

Meanwhile, one of the news portals, http://www.apfanews.com, run by journalists in exile has quoted Devi Acharya as stating that Shantiram was a good writer and used to work in different newspapers on Bhutanese refugees. Dadiram Neopane, editor of The Child Creation, a monthly newspaper funded by the LWF, says that Shantiram had served as a guest editor of Bal Awaj, a Nepali wall bulletin meant for Bhutanese refugee children a year and a half back. However, Neopane says that Acharya had been exhibiting some mental disorder.

Acharya's editorship in the wall bulletin is also confirmed by Bhim Adhikari, its present editor.
Meanwhile, the Communist Party of Bhutan, CPB-MLM, in a press statement on January 23 also denied that Acharya was affiliated to their party. But one may question if the Bhutanese Maoists are intentionally trying to conceal the facts about his affiliation. When dealing with the news from the online version of the Kuensel, then several superfluous and orchestrated messages can be read between the lines. Acharya was quoted in the Kuensel as saying that he had confessed to the RBA that he was a Maoist militia sent by the party president.

This suddenly throws up a controversy as it is known that the CPB-MLM doesn't have a presidentship system. It should also be understood here that either the RBA had forced him at gunpoint, as in the early 1990s, to make such a baseless statement or Acharya is truly mentally depressed as revealed by his relatives and many close friends. Here it also appears that the RBA has been hatching conspiracies against him simply to save the face of the royal regime, as Foreign Minister Khandu Wangchuk had reported in the recently concluded winter session of the Bhutanese National Assembly that "people in the camps in Nepal are ready-made terrorists."

Acharya being from the refugee camp has become a weapon for the Bhutanese regime to use his arrest for propaganda purposes. The international human rights bodies should be deeply concerned about the life and liberty of Acharya, as torture is very common in the police and army camps in Bhutan. According to the online version of Kuensel, Acharya will soon have to face the judiciary for further investigation. We cannot expect the Druk government-controlled judiciary to exercise all norms of a 'fair trial' during the investigation process.

Bhutan actually doesn't have an independent judiciary that delivers justice to the suppressed and unheard voices. It should be well noted here that no detainees, regardless of the seriousness of the crime, are left physically unabused in Bhutanese jails. And it has almost become more than a week that the whereabouts of Acharya has not been made public.

Release
What crime has Acharya, who was just four years old before being evicted from Bhutan in the early 1990s, committed to face a government-run judicial? If he really is a Maoist militia, then Bhutan should carry out an investigation on him in the midst of international human rights bodies. This detention is a direct violation of the provisions of international instruments like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 19) and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Therefore, international human rights organisations such as Amnesty International, Global Human Rights Defense (GHRD), Human Rights Watch (HRW) and International Committee for Red Cross (ICRC) should intervene and initiate urgent measures for his immediate release.