A decade has gone by since Buddha Gurung, 24, disappeared. His 62-year-old mother, Deu Maya Gurung, of Pokhara in Kaski district, often stares blankly toward the street in front of her home, still hopeful of her son's return. On June 3, 2005, Buddha left home on a motorcycle and never returned. Police found the motorcycle but his whereabouts remain unknown. “Some of Buddha's friends were Maoists. I came to know that his friends forced him to join the insurgency against his will,” said the mother, adding that several attempts to find Buddha proved futile. Buddha was Deu Maya's only son and she has been living alone after her husband passed away five years ago. Although she is gradually getting over the grief resulting from her husband's death, the pain caused by her son's disappearance refuses to die down. “I'm hopeful at times. But again, I come back to reality. He hasn't come home for more than the last 10 years. It is unlikely that he would turn up now,” she said. She has spent the last 10 years vacillating between hope and despair. Although the government has started the process of identifying families of those who disappeared during the Maoist insurgency and providing them with a compensation package, Deu Maya has not received anything. She has been living in a small hut with a few non-governmental organizations taking care of her basic needs. After filing a complaint at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) through a local peace committee on Sunday, she demanded that the government either find her son alive or produce evidence to prove he is no longer alive. Likewise, Tulsi Ghimire of Purandhara in Dang district also lodged a complaint before the peace committee on Monday, demanding a fair investigation into her husband's murder. “My husband was innocent. Why was he killed?” she questioned. Her husband was allegedly killed by Maoists around 17 years ago. Handing over her complaint to an assistant at the peace committee, Radha Sharma, Tulasi said, “In Dang, my husband was the first victim of the Maoists. Why hasn't he been declared a martyr yet?” "How can we trust the government that has failed to compensate the victims of armed conflict to provide us justice?" she argued. According to the peace committee, families of eight victims reached the committee's office to file their complaints on Monday. Until Sunday, the office had received only one application.

Likewise, in Kaski, a total of 16 families filed complaints regarding enforced disappearance during the insurgency, while three complaints related to the murder, according to Ramji Prasad Baral, coordinator of the committee. According to him, the committee had received 29 complaints of disappearance even before the TRC's call for complaints, out of which the peace committee had forwarded 25 to the central-level peace committee for further actions. Among the 25 cases, 17 have already been compensated in the first phase and the remaining eight would be recommended for relief in the second phase. A total of 129 people from Kaski district were said to have lost their lives as a result of the insurgency, out of which 109 have been linked to the conflict so far, Baral further informed.