Four men (Bhim Bahadur B.K., Gauri B.K., Manrup Khatri and Lil Bahadur Bogati) were released on 2 January on the orders of the Court of Appeal in Birendranagar, in the southwestern district of Surkhet, which ruled that they had been detained illegally. They had been held without charge for between seven months and two-and-a-half years. They were re-arrested immediately, outside the court building, by a group of around 50 security forces personnel in plain clothes.
