The Ministry of Home Affairs has directed Nepal Police to take action against officers involved in killing Kumar Poudel, Sarlahi district in-charge of the Netra Bikram Chand-led Communist Party of Nepal, on June 20.

The ministry’s instruction is followed by the National Human Rights Commission’s (NHRC) report submitted on October 22 that cited Poudel’s death as “extra-judicial killing”.

Police had fired nine shots to kill Poudel on the banks of the Lakhandehi River in Lalbandi of Sarlahi, after the government banned the Chand-led CPN on March 12.

At that time, police had said that they opened fire in self-defence.

NHRC’s investigation, however, found that police had killed Poudel after taking him under control.

Police also tried to mislead the agencies concerned by tampering with information collected from the incident site, as per NHRC.

Later, doctors also sided with the police and prepared an autopsy report without following standard norms, said NHRC, which has demanded compensation of Rs 300,000 for Poudel’s family.

NHRC recommended that the government immediately suspend police officers directly involved in the incident, including Inspector Krishna Dev Prasad Shah and constables Binod Shah and Satya Narayan Mishra, and file a criminal case against them.

The NHRC has also directed the government to take action against Inspector Kiran Prasad Neupane and Sub-inspector Surya Kumar Karki for their neglect while collecting information from the incident site and reprimand Dr Birendra Kumar Mandal of Sarlahi District Hospital for not following minimum standard while conducting autopsy.

The NHRC has recommended that the government take necessary action against the security agency concerned and the supervisor who gave permission to kill Poudel.

“We’ll follow the ministry’s instruction, but we cannot take action against our officers without conducting our own probe,” said Nepal Police Spokesperson Deputy Inspector General Shailesh Thapa Kshetri.