KATHMANDU, AUG 06 - Rights defenders have appealed Nepal Police to offer security to the family of a 14-year-old rape victim who died while undergoing treatment in a Capital-based hospital on Sunday.
The girl was raped, held in captivity and force fed Harpic, a popular toilet cleaning solution, in Siraha district, and now the perpetrators, backed by local politicians and businesspersons, are pressuring the victim’s family to drop the charges, said Renu Karn, vice president of Mukti Nepal.
Mukti Nepal and Women Human Rights Defenders are helping the girl’s family bring the perpetrators to justice.
The girl was raped by Binod Basnet on April 25 at Rakesh Hotel and Lodge in Lahan Municipality, where she had been working as a maid. Basnet worked as a cook at the same hotel.
According to Karn, Basnet and the hotel owner held the girl captive for 35 days so that the statute of limitation period to file a case would expire. During this period, Basnet and his accomplice had barred girl’s mother from contacting her daughter, telling her that she had suffered from food poisoning and taking rest.
The mother was allowed to meet her daughter on the 36th day. It was then that she found out that her teenage daughter was terribly ill.
“Had she received immediate treatment, the girl could have been saved,” Karn said.
The teenage girl died 45 days after she was force fed the toilet cleaning solution which had severely burned her entrails.
Pratima Sharma of Women’s Rehabilitation Centre said the local police and the government lawyers are not supporting the victim’s family, arguing that the case is weak.
“We have somehow managed to put Basnet in custody. But after the girl’s death we are concerned that he might be freed,” Sharma said.
Karn of Mukti Nepal said though they had planned to book Basnet and his accomplice on the charges of rape, captivity and attempt to murder, they only succeeded in filing an attempt to murder charge against Basnet.
“The offenders have put a huge pressure on us to discourage us from taking dragging them to court,” Karn said. “We are concerned that the evidence might be destroyed, or worse, the victim’s mother and elder sister might be coerced into dropping the case.”
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