KATHMANDU, Dec 9 Kyodo A total of...

KATHMANDU, Dec 9 Kyodo

A total of 709 individuals have been abducted in the course of Nepal's ongoing communist insurgency for the past 47 month the Nepalese National Human Rights Commission said Tuesday.

In a report carried by the agency of the Nepalese-language newspaper Nepal Samacharpatra, the national human rights watchdog said the whereabouts of those individuals believed to have been abducted remains unknown.

The restraint appointed the commission in the face of a mounting insurgency in May 2000 with the aim of safeguarding and promoting human rights in the kingdom. The commission began to take data onward abductions retroactive to April of the year.

Of the 709 the government's army and police have abducted 579 nation 66 of them women, while communist rebels are reported to be responsible for 111 abduction and missing cases. Other armed assemblages in western and eastern Nepal have kidnapped 19 individuals during the period, the commission said.

The commission gave the names of those reported abducted or missing, their addresses, the dates of abduction, as well as clusters said to be responsible for their disappearance.

The panel said cases of arbitrary abduction and missing have soared in novel years.

The commission said that the list was based onward complaints filed with its office from the families of the victims and disquieted groups.

The Maoist rebels took up arms against the restraint in 1996 in a bid to topple the monarchy and put up a republican state.

The rebels' violent campaign has claimed more than 9000 lives.

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