KATHMANDU, Jan 6: In yet another tragic case of caste discrimination in rural Nepal, a budding intercaste love story in Dailekh has been nipped from the stem due to societal pressure.
Two seventeen-year-old lovebirds, a boy from the Dalit community and a girl from the Chhetri community, who had gone missing for a week, were found dead in a forest nearby their home on Sunday.
According to the District Police Office (DPO), Dailekh, Ram (name changed), and Sita (name changed), who were missing since December 28, were found dead in the Tusore forest near their home. Both attended Kalika Secondary School in Bhagwatimai Rural Municipality-4 where Ram was in grade 10 and Sita in grade 9.
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As the families of the teenagers were focused on their social prestige rather than the safety of the youths, they attempted to hush the case by searching for the missing duo independently rather than seeking assistance from the police.
Chief of Dailekh DPO, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Sunil Dahal informed Republica that the families only sought help from the police on Sunday, a day after the couple went missing.
Principal of the school Karna Bahadur Thapa, a relative of the girl, took to Facebook on Sunday and expressed his suspicion that the teeangers were in a love relationship. He claimed that the boys’ side was reluctant to conduct a postmortem of the body as that the boy’s family would have to perform the duo’s last rites if the girl is found to be pregnant.
However, officials from the DPO dismissed this claim, informing Republica that it was rather the girl’s family that attempted to block the postmortem citing the potential societal backlash if their daughter is proved to have been in a love affair with a boy from the Dalit community. The source said that the girl's family had even pressured the boy’s family to block the postmortem.
Despite the pressure from the families, the police kept the bodies of the deceased couple at the district hospital for postmortem. DSP Dahal informed Republica that a postmortem operation has already been conducted on both bodies and that the police are awaiting the final report. He declined to comment on the rumors about the girl being pregnant until the report is received by the DPO.
