KATHMANDU, Feb 1: It has been confirmed that two teenage girls, who were found dead in Dhakari Rural Municipality-1 of Achham on January 25, were murdered in the forest.
Holding a press conference on Saturday, the District Police Office (DPO), Achham, published the results of the police investigation into the incident. The police have arrested two teenagers for their involvement in the incident.
Ishara Khadka, 14, and her aunt Saraswati Khadka, 15, both of Palsatta, Dhakari Rural Municipality-8, had gone to the forest for their daily chore of grazing goats on January 24. Unlike other days they did not return in the evening. However, the goats they had taken to graze had returned and entered from other villagers’ gardens, from where the villagers delivered them home.
The very next day, their bodies were found in a gruesome condition near the Chinne Odar of Shodsha Community Forest in Dhakari Rural Municipality-1. Judging by the condition of the bodies, it was initially believed that they had been murdered.
However, the DPO was unable to immediately ascertain the truth behind the incident. For their aid, a team from the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB), Sudurpaschim Province Police Office (PPO), Dhangadhi and Nepal Police Province Office, Mahendranagar, reached Achham.
According to the DPO, a joint operation between these teams into the incident had been able to determine and round up the accused minors who are from Dhakari Rural Municipality-3, Tali.
However, the identities of both have been hidden as they are minors. Police have assigned the duo the names 69 Mangalsen 73 and 69 Mangalsen 76.
Telephone love, first meet, sexual proposal and murder
According to the police, accused 69 Mangalsen 73 and the deceased Ishara (the niece) had been talking on the telephone for a long time. During that conversation, a childish love flourished between the two. Accused 69 Mangalsen 73 wanted to meet Ishara. However, such an opportunity was far-fetched as the distance between Tali and Palsata is long. He could not go to Palsatta just to meet her.
In the month of Magh (mid-January to mid-February), it is customary in the far western region to give a ‘Maghetyar’ (koseli) to a daughter. Accused 69 Mangalsen 73’s aunt had been married to a person in Ishra’s village Palsatta. He took this opportunity to give a Maghetyar to his aunt and meet Ishra. On the day before the murder he and 69 Mangalsen 76 left Tali for Palsatta with the Maghetyar.
On the same day, 69 Mangalsen 73 had called Ishra repeatedly asking her to meet him. However, it was not possible. The following day (on the day of the murder), he came to know from their phone conversation that Ishra was going to graze her goats. Then, on the day of the murder, he took his aunt’s 10-year-old son and waited for Ishra along with 69 Mangalsen 76 waited for the girls on their regular path to the forest from 10 am.
At around 12 noon, Ishra and her aunt Saraswati left the hut in the Rimraowa River and went to the forest to graze the goats. It was on that road that they met for the first time.
Upon meeting, the duo started conversing. Police investigation has found evidence of 69 Mangalsen 73 transferring a song from Saraswati’s phone through ‘Share It’ to his mobile phone.
As per the statement of the perpetrators, while chatting on the stone of a carved cave, the teenagers asked Ishara and Saraswati for their shawl (chunni) as a symbol of love. However, the victims did not accept it. As a reaction, 69 Mangalsen 76 snatched Ishara's shawl and gave it to 69 Mangalsen 73. Similarly, when Saraswati did not give them her shawl, 69 Mangalsen 76 snatched her earphones.
According to the police’s investigation, the two groups separated for some time after the argument. During this, Ishara went to tend the goats some distance away. Accused 69 Mangalsen 76 approached Saraswati and professed his love for her. He then proposed to have sexual intercourse with her. According to the police, she had said, “I will consent only after we get married.” The accused had promised that he would marry her after 5/6 years, saying that he was too young. Saraswati did not agree to it.
Police have stated that 69 Mangalsen 76 has given them a statement that he threw a stone at Saraswati's head from behind when she rejected his sexual proposal. She collapsed in that state and died.
Ishra, who was still distant from the murder site, did not immediately know about the incident. After Saraswati's death, 69 Mangalsen 76 placed the murder weapon near her body and started throwing stones at the foot of the nearby cliff to furnish proof for his claim that the death took place due to an accident. 69 Mangalsen 73 helped him in this endeavor.
Hearing the sound of stones being thrown, Ishra came to the scene of the murder. There she saw Saraswati's lifeless body in a horrible condition. Both the accused minors tried to convince Ishra that she died due to impact from the falling stones. But she did not believe them. The police have concluded that the accused duo then killed her too when she started saying that she would tell about the murder to her villagers.
Even after the second murder, they had thrown many stones at the body to make the murder look like an accident. After seeing stones at the scene of the crime in an unnatural manner, the police had started the investigation into the murder.
The police had reached the accused using various clues. In which the 10-year-old minor who had accompanied the accused also helped in the investigation.
Now, the police have registered a case against them on charges of homicide and have initiated further investigation.
