Kathmandu, February 10
Receiving a memorandum from a delegation of the Nepal Student Union on Tuesday, Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa said, “The murder of Bhagirathi Bhatta [a 17-year-old student from Baitadi, raped after murder] is not as complicated as that of Nirmala Pant. We will be successful [in solving this mystery] soon.”
Some sources in the Nepal Police also believe the recent incident is not as complex as the 2018 July incident, whose culprits the police have not yet identified, and the minister based his statement on the police reporting.
However, investigators say the incident is not as easy as the minister claimed for they have not found any reliable evidence yet.
Sudurpaschim Provincial Police Office chief Uttam Raj Subedi says the investigators are focused on a technical probe along with the manual probe. The Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police has mobilised a team led by DSP Pancha Kumar Bakhu for the probe.
The investigators are looking into Bhatta’s activities on the phone as they have found her phone near her body, but this is not easy either.
It has been found that the teenage girl had two sim cards: one of the Nepal Telecom, and the second of an Indian telecom service provider. “It is difficult to find details of the Indian sim,” an official involved in the probe says, “But still, we are coordinating with the Indian police.”
Police suspect Bhatta might have deleted some information from her mobile, hence it is being investigated at the Digital Forensic Lab of Nepal Police.
Police have bought the victim’s vaginal swab sample also to Kathmandu for further investigation. The investigation will reveal if the swab contained a man’s semen.
“We are also interrogating people on the vehicles that travelled that route on Wednesday and Thursday last week,” informs Police Inspector Janak Dhami at the District Police Office.
