25th of September 1990, a large number of people, including the village headmen and the national assembly members, from various villages and blocks, gathered in Chirang Dzong, the district headquarters, calling for restoration of human rights and establishment of democracy in Bhutan. The demonstration went on for two consecutive days. Each evening the people peacefully concluded the demonstration and went back to their homes. But on both of the days, the district authorities shut themselves in their offices to avoid meeting and talking to the demonstrators. As Dashain festival was approaching, people were disconcerted and perturbed by the fact that government had imposed bans on culture, tradition, language and dress of Southern Bhutanese.

On 4th of October 1990, over 10,000 people walked to the Dzong (district headquarters) carrying banners and placards calling for human rights and democracy in Bhutan. Most people were wearing traditional dress and were carrying lunch packs (rice and curry) wrapped in cloth pieces. The crowd began its sit-in demonstration in front of the Dzong. Around 2pm, one of our representatives was finally able to submit an appeal to the Dzongda (chief district officer) to be forwarded to King Jigme Singhe Wangchuck. The Dzongda addressed the gathering saying that he would forward the appeal to the King and asked everyone to wait calmly for the response from the King. We all were happy to listen to what the Dzongda said and the people continued with the peaceful sit-in demonstration. 

Around 7pm, the Dzongda, along with the District Education Officer, appeared in front of the mass and informed us that the King was unable to respond to the appeal immediately. He then asked everyone to return home. When the crowd resisted leaving and insisted on waiting for the response from the King, the Dzongda declared that either everyone should leave immediately or else the army would open fire to disperse the crowd, as ordered by the King. The people were panic stricken. As night approached, people gradually dispersed and returned home. The following day, Bhutan Radio, claimed that the Lothsampas (Bhutanese Nepalese) in Chirang had come to the Dzong threatening to attack with packs of explosive. The people in Chirang were utterly dumbfounded to find the government alleging that their lunch packs of rice and curry were explosives.

To suppress the call for human rights and democracy, the government sent a large number of army personnel to the district. On 28th October 1990, around 12 noon, locals heard the sound of hundreds of bullets being fired near Naubaag Golai close to Lamidara Sub Division office. Fifty minutes later, my cousin brother, Harka Bahadur Dahal reached my house and informed me that the army had come in trucks to collect books, stationery, food items and other properties belonging to the school in nearby Lamidara. When the villagers tried to dissuade the army from making the seizure and tried to convince the officials that their children required those educational materials to study, the army personnel said that all villagers were “anti-nationals” and that they didn’t deserve school for their children or any assistance from the government. Then they opened fire. As told by the villagers witnessing the scene, Pema Tamang, Goman Singh Khadka, Tikaram Adhikari and Devnarayan Adhikari were shot and killed by the army. Their bodies were immediately taken away by the army and were never returned. Soon, most of the schools and government offices were closed in Chirang district. Gradually, martial law was imposed and curfews were put in place. I was hearing that many activists from the nearby villages and blocks were being arrested, detained and tortured. Although lurking in fear, I, as a simple subsistence farmer, continued with my usual life of farming in my village, looking after my family.

On the night of 30th July 1991, I was fast asleep on the veranda of my house on the first floor. It was around 11pm that I heard several footsteps approaching the foreyard of my house. Gradually some people started to climb up the stairs of my house. I saw two persons coming closer to me, throwing the light from the torch directly on to my face. As they came very close, I saw the army uniform and recognized one of the officers as Nala Dukpa. He said, ‘Is your name Nar Bahadur Dahal?’ I said, ‘Yes’. Suspecting possible arrest, I told him that there was another person by the same name, Nar Bahadur Dahal. He then asked my house number and thram (land deed) number. After I told him my house and thram numbers, Nala caught hold of my hand and said that Dasho had sent him to arrest me. As I was wearing just my vest and underwear, Nala asked me to put on my bakhu and get ready to leave. By that time my wife Kunti was up and Nala angrily asked my wife to bring my bakhu for me. My wife looked for it and said that she couldn’t find it. Then Nala himself went into my wife’s room and took the bakhu from the hook on the wall and gave it to me. Before I could put on my bakhu, Nala grabbed my hand and started to pull me down the stairs.

As I was being taken to the foreyard of my house, my wife lit a “tuki” (traditional oil lamp) and together with our nine year old son Biren, started to follow me. Nala ordered me to take him to Harka Bahadur’s house, who was my cousin and a neighbour. As I walked towards Harka’s house, while tying my bakhu, I could see around 12 army personnel encircling me with guns in their hands. Nala asked my wife to go back home. She insisted on going with me. One army personnel hit my wife with the rifle butt and demanded that she must go back home. She still continued following me saying that she would go with her husband wherever he was taken to. Finally we reached Harka’s house and he was busy putting together the maize cobs into bundles for storing. Nala asked if his name was Harka Bahadur. He said that he was and Nala informed Harka of his arrest. One army officer caught hold of Harka. Then they took a piece of rope and tied both Harka’s and my hands, behind our backs. From there, we were made to walk towards Chhabilal’s house. My wife, together with my son, stubbornly continued following me.

It was drizzling and we all were getting wet. When we reached Chhabilal’s house he was not in the house. Then we were asked to go to the house of Dilliram Dahal, who was also our ex-village headman. When we reached Dilliram’s house, he too wasn’t in the house. Then five army personnel, including Nala, took Harka and myself away, while seven others personnel stayed behind and forced my wife together with my son into Dilliram’s house, hitting her with rifle butts. Harka and I were then taken to a place called Dhajay where we were put in an army vehicle and taken to Damphu High School which had been converted into army-barrack-cum-detention-cum-torture centre. Around 1am, completely drenched by the rain, we reached Damphu High School. They untied our hands and handcuffed us individually. We were then taken into separate dark rooms and detained.

On 31 July 1991 at around 6am, a government officer named Chhimi Dukpa came to the room where I was detained. Addressing me as ‘Ngolop’ (anti-national), he suddenly started kicking and punching me, using dirty swearing words. After a while, he caught hold of my ear and took me to a gravelled ground and made me to crawl on my knees. After one hour of ill treatment and interrogation, Chhimi left the place. Soon after Chhimi’s departure, the police DSP came in and continued interrogating me. He had already prepared a confession paper alleging that I had paid Nu. 42,000.00 to a political party, that I had mobilised people to participate in the demonstration and that I had burnt the school in Dagana in the neighbouring district. I declined to accept the fabricated charges against me. But under acute ill treatment and duress, I was made to accept those allegations and was eventually forced to provide finger impressions on the confession paper with all my ten fingers.

My detention continued at Damphu High School and so did the ill treatment and torture by the Royal Bhutan Army personnel. I was handcuffed all the time and confined in a foul smelling room, as I was required to pass urine and stool in a tiny tin pot kept in my room. I was provided with food which was adulterated with sand and pebbles, and even the droppings of mice. The army guards on duty used to have fun by bringing other inmates to my room and forcing us to fight, head butting like bulls. We were threatened and forced to bull fight with greater intensity, and the guards would burst into laughter seeing us in such action. We were regularly forced to wrestle and beat one another very hard with bamboo sticks. If someone was found to hit the fellow inmates lightly, the army would mercilessly beat that person, demonstrating how to hit hard. My cousin Harka and I were also made to carry the tin pot, filled with our own urine and faeces, on our backs and carry another inmate on top of that and crawl around the room.

On 21 August 1991, the police DSP and Dempon Goom, took me to another room and started to torture and interrogate me. They ordered the army personnel to put a clamp on my thigh and started to jump heavily on the upper wooden roll of the clamp inflicting severe pain. Next, they began to roll the clamp up and down my legs and soon I became unconscious. Many hours later, when I gained consciousness, I found myself lying on the floor of my room and my legs were heavily bruised and swollen. For over a week I was unable to walk and remained crippled in my room. As I remained detained, the ill treatment and torture of inmates continued unabated. More detainees began to be brought in and were kept in different rooms. Cries of agony from the tortured could be heard coming from different directions.

Close to our important festival ‘Dashain’, the number of detainees reached 105. The army officers began to offer conditional release to the detainees, who were asked to sign the ‘voluntary migration form’ and leave the country, for good, immediately upon release. The detainees were threatened by the officers that the term of imprisonment would be prolonged indefinitely if they do not sign the ‘voluntary migration form’. The wives and children of detainees were approached at homes, in person, by local officers to fill and sign the ‘voluntary migration form’ in exchange for release of their loved ones. Soon many started to sign the ‘voluntary migration from’ in exchange for their freedom and loved ones were released.

On 15 February 1992, army personnel suddenly turned up in our room at 6am with food containers, sarcastically saying that today was our great festival ‘Dashain’, and started pouring a scoop of porridge on each of our plates. The food was so salty that no one could eat it. By ‘Dashain’ festival time, many agreed to conditional release and the number of detainees shrank to twenty five. Soon after the food we were all ordered to file outside onto the school ground. To everyone’s surprise, designated army personnel started to take individual photographs of the detainees. After taking the pictures, the inmates, who were already in handcuffs, were tied together in a group of six with a piece of rope. The commanding officer then informed the inmates that we were being transferred to Chemgang Central Prison. At 8am we were then dumped in three army vehicles and driven off to Chemgang. It was dark when we reached the prison around 7pm. As an established tradition of the prison, we were given a customary welcome by 50 policemen (prison guards) randomly charging at us with their wooden clubs and batons. After this thorough thrashing, we were taken to Room No. 4 and locked in. That night we were kept without food and water.

From 16 February 1992 onwards an extremely horrendous life started in Chemgang prison. The prison guards removed handcuffs from our hands and put chains on our feet. We were made to get up at 5am in the morning and recite the mantras of Drukpa Kajyugpa (a form of Buddhism particularly followed in western Bhutan). At 6am we were given dry and slightly heated wheat flour, with some water to drink. For lunch, we were given terrible food consisting of very coarse rice and thin soup with a few morsels of vegetable. And for dinner, the food provided was the same as for lunch. On the following weekend water was poured over prisoners’ clothes and we were made to roll on dusty ground, while army guards laughed and enjoyed the action. Almost every weekend, the army forced prisoners to enact humiliating and funny acts for their fun and entertainment.

While in Chemgang, prisoners were forced into the very hard labour of constructing three new prison houses. The regular torture and the bad prison conditions at Damphu High School detention had badly damaged my physical and mental health. The rigorous labour in Chemgang prison began to cost my frail health further. Every day, I had to lift an 8 kg hammer to break and carry huge boulders for eight hours – from 7am to 11am in the morning and 1pm to 5pm in the evening. If any inmate slowed down a bit during the work hours, prison guard would heavily thrash the inmate with sticks and hasten him to work. As an alternative punishment, the police guards would force inmates to plunge into bone-chilling icy water in the river at the worksite for half-an-hour and then they would make them jump to warm themselves up. In the prevailing prison conditions, I always thought that I would soon die because many inmates succumbed to death, which went unreported. In fact, falling sick meant death as medical assistance was not provided. Somehow, I managed to survive, while continuing with the hard labour.

On 30 March 1992, the prison guard removed my chain and I was taken to Dadimakha police headquarters together with many of my fellow prison inmates. At Dadimakha, Police Major Kipchu Dorji, gave a lengthy speech justifying our arrest and treatment while in the prison. He informed us that His Majesty King Jigme Singhe Wangchuck had given amnesty to 272 prisoners, after going through individual files. Major Kipchu said that the inmates could now go back to their homes and engage in farming as usual. Around 2pm we were finally released. We did not have any money to return home and the authority remained indifferent to our problem. Many fellow inmates walked their way home. I managed to get some monetary support from my village acquaintance in Thimphu and travelled via Wangdi to Damphu. From Damphu I walked to my village with my frail body.

When I reached home, my wife broke down to see my frail condition. My son ran away being horrified by my look with a long beard, swollen face, brownish broken teeth and skinny structure. It was a big relief and happiness for me to be finally reuniting with my family after months of separation and unspeakable ordeals in the prison. At home, I continued suffering from the impact of torture inflicted in the prison and could not access medical support from a local hospital. All I could do was to depend on the herbal medicine that my wife prepared for me. Gradually, I started to recover my physical health and eventually went back to my usual life as a subsistence farmer.

One year later there was a notice from the local village headman, requiring each household in the village to provide 15 days ‘Septolemi’, a form of conscript labour, for the army stationed at the Dratshang (a Buddhist religious place where Royal Bhutan Army personnel shared the premises with the Monks). But this time, the village headman specifically ordered women folks from the villages to provide helping hands in cleaning, cooking and gardening at Dratshang. Before my wife left for Dratshang to provide ‘Septolemi’, the daughter of my neighbour, who had been to Dratshang for ‘Septolemi’, came to my house and burst into tears, recounting her awful experience in Dratshang, including sexual harassment and rape by the army personnel. I and my wife were utterly terrified to hear of her ordeal and I decided to go to Dratshang in place of my wife.

On 24 April 1993, around 7am, as I was on my way to Dratshang to provide ‘Septolemi’, a jeep came and stopped next to me. Officer Chhimi came out of the jeep. Calling out my name, he said – ‘Haven’t you left the country yet?’ … … ‘where are you going?’ … … I told him – ‘Dasho I am going to Dratshang to provide ‘Septolemi’’. He then took out his walkie-talkie and started to speak to someone. Immediately, two police personnel arrived carrying rifles with them. I was arrested by the police and taken to ‘Dratshang’ and locked inside a room. For the whole day I was kept inside the room without food and water, and not even allowed to use the toilet.

At 11pm, I was taken to one of the rooms in the top floor of Dratshang. In the room, Chhimi, together with other police personnel, started to interrogate and harass me saying, ‘Why haven’t you left the country yet?’ and started poking my body with a rifle bayonet as well as wooden rolls. Chhimi said, ‘This country is ours and that we can do whatever we like”. Recounting the incident of former prisoner, Dharma Raj Gurung, who was beaten to death by the police while in detention, Chhimi started to threaten me by saying that no one will ever know or ask about you, even if we kill you like Dharma Raj Gurung. Under such intimidation, he started threatening me to sign an agreement paper, written in Dzongkha, accepting the order to leave the country for good. I explained to Chhimi that I was given an amnesty by His Majesty the King after reviewing my case and also told him about Dasho Kipchu telling the prisoners, on the day of release, to go back home and get back to farming. Chhimi was very angry while listening to my narration and shouted at me, saying, “Don’t you understand me?”.

After a while, Chhimi mockingly said, “Do you know to whom this country belongs?” Although in fear, I told him, “It belongs to all the Bhutanese.” After a pause he pulled up the collar of his ‘gho’ (ethnic Drukpa dress) with his thumb and index fingers and sarcastically said, “It belongs to us.” (meaning to the Drukpas). Then Chhimi again started threatening and giving me an ultimatum, to either leave the country immediately or face the death penalty. With the harassment heightening, I began to revisit the ordeal that I went through while in the prison, as well as recalling the dreadful story told by my father about Mahasur Chhetri and Garjaman Gurung, who were brutally killed by the government forces in the distant past. I started convincing myself that it was better to leave the country alive with my family than to die in the hands of these ruthless people. Succumbing to the pressure, I ultimately signed the paper and then Chhimi released me immediately.

Hoping against hope that some positive changes would take place in the country, I continued staying in my village with my family. After a couple of months, I got a letter from the village headman, sent on behalf of Dzongda, asking me to come to the office to complete the “voluntary migration form”. After receiving this letter, I went to my cousin’s house, whose father was a former village headman, and stayed hiding there with my family. One day, the village headman along with the police came to the village looking for me. When they didn’t find me at my house, they searched in the village and found me at my cousin’s house. I, along with my family, was escorted to the district headquarters and was made to sign the “voluntary migration form”. The village headman said that I was eligible for a compensation of Nu. 12,500 for my properties (consisting of my triple storey house, orange orchard, and paddy field, with a valuation of almost Nu. 350,000 then). However, I was given only Nu.2500 and, the remaining Nu. 10,000 was held back by the authority as my expenses incurred during the term of detention at Damphu High School and imprisonment at Chemgang Central Prison. The police then ordered my whole family to stand in front of the camera, asked us to smile and took our photograph.

On 6th June 1993, I found myself and my family forced into exile, ending up as stateless, in the UNHCR camp in eastern Nepal. I lived in Khudunabari Refugee Camp in Jhapa in Nepal for fifteen long years. Through the Bhutan-Nepal Bilateral Talks and the Bhutan-Nepal Joint Verification Process, I had high hopes of returning to my own home and landed properties in Bhutan. But unfortunately, the whole process got aborted and instead I landed in Adelaide in South Australia, under the third country resettlement program in 2010. After more than a decade of statelessness, I have finally become a citizen of a great country – Australia. Here I am looked after and cared for very well by the government.

Living my retirement life in Australia, I continue to fondly and vividly remember my home and land in Harabotay in Chirang, where many generations of my family lived and toiled. However, the impact of torture, inflicted while in detention in Damphu High School and in Chemgang Central Prison, deepens every day, making my life distressful. Because of the use of clamping in prison, my right leg does not move sometime and it pains continuously. I have also developed chest pain due to the torture and asthma due to over exposure to very cold weather in Chemgang prison. I take six different medicines every day. Despite these ailments, I have the feeling of great satisfaction that my small contribution towards establishing human rights and democracy in Bhutan is serving my fellow citizens well back in the country. I wish a peaceful and happy life to all my fellow Bhutanese in Bhutan and pray that no one is ever again subjected to political persecution, torture and trauma.

Nar Bahadur Dahal
Age: 63 yrs old
Residence in Bhutan: : Harabotay, Chanautey, Chirang,Thram No: 6, House No: HB9 
Exile: Bhutanese Refugee Camp, Hut No. 2, Sector G1, Khudunabari, Jhapa, Nepal
Permanent Residence: Adelaide, South Australia
Story Compiled by: Jogen Gazmere
Photo Courtesy:Chak Man Bista 
Publication Date: 3 June 2017