Some scholar ought to do an analysis of "abductions" in human rights and media discourse about Nepal. Reports that I have seen -- issued by such organizations as Informal Sector Service Center, Child Workers in Nepal Concerned Centre, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, etc. -- suggest that, when reports come that hundreds of teachers, thousands of students, etc. were abducted by Maoists, it usually means that they were made to listen to Maoist propaganda. At the end of the propaganda session, most of them leave, with some of them joining the rebels.
The media as well as human rights organization often use the same words to describe what the Royal security forces do. But when people get abducted by the security forces, they are seldom heard from again.
The same words are used to refer to different actions of both, so either both must be equally bad or Maoists must be worse since the larger numbers are involved in reports about Maoists' actions, or that's what we are supposed to believe. The artificial even-handedness obscures who is committing most violence in Nepal.
-- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>