E/CN.4/2006/6/Add.5 page 28 his house and beaten on the street. The hood that was used was lined with plastic on the inside; the outside material was cloth. A rope was attached which was wound around his neck. He reported that it had been extremely hard to breathe. They asked him where the Maoist leaders were and threatened to kill him. Fifty metres from his house, they began to hit him by the roadside with their rifle butts. His arms, legs and torso were stepped on, and they rolled a heavy pole over his thighs. He was taken to the Chisapani barracks. He was taken to a special room for the torture. He identified two of the perpetrators as Captain Ramesh Swar and Major Ajit Thapa. He was beaten unconscious with rifle butts, and a tapered truncheon-like stick the perpetrators referred to as “Kali”, approximately an arm’s length and covered with rubber bands. He was told that 11 persons had been killed with it and he was going to be the twelfth. He was beaten on the soles of his feet while he was lying on the floor, or lying on his back with his feet up in the air. For almost two months he was tortured continuously, and thereafter only once or twice a week. He was hooded for seven months, 24 hours a day, and as a result, his eyes were damaged. The hood was taken off for 5-10 minutes a day when he was eating or going to the toilet, but his eyes were otherwise always kept covered. He said that one gets used to not getting enough oxygen. He could not see other people directly, but he could make out some of his surroundings when he looked down through the blindfold. His hands were tied with a very tight rope, and unbound for 15 minutes a day. His fingernails grew so long that he could not eat the rice any more, and because his hands were tied behind his back he could not chew off his nails. His feet were also bound for 15-20 days. From time to time he and some fellow prisoners were taken to the jungle where a gun was put in their mouths or against their temples. They would hear gunfire and were told that a co-detainee had just been killed. Sometimes he was locked in the latrine with no ventilation and forced to eat there. When he was not being tortured he was kept in a room approximately 15-20 m². Sometimes he was the only person there, and sometimes he was there together with 50 or 60 others. He had to sleep on the cement floor without a blanket. He slept on his stomach, with his hands tied behind his back. In the morning he had five minutes to go to the toilet. He reported that when some NGOs came to visit, he was given medication to cover his wounds. Some of the other detainees were released when they agreed to sign a paper agreeing to bring another five Maoists to the authorities. Upon his release he was warned not to tell anybody about the torture, otherwise they would “chop him to death with an axe”. As a result of the beatings and the lack of movement, he could not walk at that time; he still complains of loss of mobility in his legs. They had taken off the hood and untied his hands. Then they cut his fingernails and hair. He did not know why they did that. At his release he was simply thrown out of the barracks. Because he could not walk and his sight was severely impaired, everything he saw flickered and was blurred, and he just sat outside the barracks. A truck driver picked him up and brought him home to his family. During the entire seven months in detention he had had no contact with his family, although his wife knew that he was held in Chisapani because she had witnessed the arrest, and the RNA kept returning to his house afterwards. His family begged them to release him or to hand over his body if he was dead. The army did not give his family any information as to his whereabouts. He himself knew from the start that he was in Chisapani because it was only 5 or 6 km from his home. For a whole year he had to report back to the barracks and was not allowed to leave his village. He did not lodge a complaint because he was afraid of reprisals. According to the medical examination, he had a dislocated tooth, scars on his left thigh and behind his left knee, and had difficulty