So, Basista Koirala is dead. Abducted by Maoist guerillas last October, the 46-year-old farmer has, according to Nepal's military, become another victim of a war rooted in dire poverty, violent rebellion and failed government.
Last year, I met his wife, Urmila. The rebels - fighting to build a 'people's republic' out of a rapidly decaying Hindu kingdom - had entered their village, she said, and ordered that Koirala, who held no strong political beliefs, go and answer questions over the killing of a rebel commander. He failed to return, and now the army says it is sure that he is dead.
Nepal's remote, vulnerable villages have faced the brunt of a war that continues to claim lives and bleed the country dry while tourists trek the Himalayas or fend off dope-pushers in the Kathmandu tourist ghetto known as Thamel. Ten thousand people have now died. Across the country, hundreds have 'disappeared' into military custody, according to Amnesty International.
The unemployed are leaving in ever greater numbers. Others join the Maoists, who now control at least 65 per cent of the country.
The response by all sides to this conflict is to heap more misery on the average Nepali: blockades, strikes, and the promise of peace talks that never materialise. There appears to be no trust, no compromise, no new thinking.
Faced with such a pervasive deadlock, pressure from outside - and especially from the United States and the regional power, India - may offer the best chance of peace. King Gyanendra fears that outside involvement will allow the Maoists to exact a higher price, and the government repeatedly stresses that the war is an internal issue. But all sides are susceptible to pressure: the palace is propped up by a military dependent on aid and training from the US and India. Aid budgets could also be used as leverage.