Bodies in the forest

Fic, obviously. I don't know if it's going to go into the Appointments & Disappointments series, but it could.

 
Post Report. March 22.

Two unidentified bodies of middle-aged men have been found in the forest of Hattiban in Kathmandu valley. A group of morning joggers discovered the bodies after noticing suspicious blue tarp in the forest and investigating. The Kathmandu Valley Metropolitican Police were notified and were present in the scene to collect the bodies and surrounding evidence. The area has been roped off to passerbies as the police search for further evidence.

Police Superintendent Rabi Thapa, who has been charged to lead the investigations, has said the team is exploring the surrounding areas for possibly more bodies. The bodies were found in a state of rapid decomposition, and identifying the individuals has been difficult due to the lack of cards or any obvious signs. The police have engaged the forensics department to reconstruct facial features from the skulls to publicize the identity of the victims.

SP Thapa says the police suspect foul play, the two individuals may have been a part of a gang or a group who were targeted by an opposing force. We don't generally see individuals who commit heinous crimes such as these putting the effort to transport the bodies so far, wrap them up so well, with the knowledge of the chemicals involved in dissolving human features. This has to be the work of a person or a group of people well rehearsed in disposing of dead bodies and the resources to do so. He has said that very few individuals or gangs in Nepal have the motivation to go this far, usually in cases of gang-related violence the victims are abandoned where they are murdered, so it is likely to have international gang involvement. We have seen similar cases play out in India and other countries, so it's possible this may be related to transnational crime, and may or may not have any connections with smuggling or other criminal activities.

Sources who chose to be anonymous but have affiliations with the police have contacted the Post to suggest that the cause of death may have been poisoning, as no physical trauma or would of any sort was discovered in the victims' bodies. The sources claim that the scale of the murders may be quite grave as none of the common chemicals used in similar crimes have been identified yet, leading to a possibility that this may go much deeper than it already seems. It is possible, our source said, that there could be international governmental involvement and spycraft involved. We know how the Russians were able to poison their victims with highly potent and radioactive poisons in Britain. It's not unlikely that some other country may have committed a similar assassination in Nepali territory. If that were to be the case, it could get quite difficult to identify the perpetrators as testing facilities in Nepal do not have the ability to search through thousands of less-common poisons that may have been used in the crime.

Experts warn however against pointing fingers at the possibility of a political assassination as such unsubstantiated claim could cause a degradation of Nepal's relationship with her allies. An expert in Nepal's foreign relations and a former ambassador who declined to be named suggested thaat even if the perpetrators and their relationships with foreign entities were identified, there's little the government can do. Due to the nature of our small sized and limited international influence, if we find out it's one of various countries that had a formal role to play in this sort of behavior, there is nothing we can do except perhaps a strongly-worded letter to their embassy. Even that the current government could be unwilling to do since it desperately needs international validation.