Kathmandu, August 6

Police have nabbed a 72-year-old man from Sinamangal, who was absconding after being convicted of rape.

Kathmandu District Court had sentenced Pushpa Lal Upreti aka Bharat Sharma of Hariwan-2, Sarlahi, currently residing at Sinnamangal, to eight years in prison with an order to pay the rape victim a compensation of Rs 100,000 on November 9, 2014.

SP Kiran Bajracharya of Central Investigation Bureau informed that the rape convict was arrested from his residence yesterday, as part of the Bureau’s campaign to arrest absconders to bring an end to impunity.

The 13-year-old victim was the perpetrator’s domestic help.

His involvement in the heinous crime surfaced after teachers asked the seventh grader why she did not do well in exams in 2013. In response, she had disclosed the physical and mental torture being meted out on her by Upreti, her employer for the past three years.

An employee at Maiti Nepal had filed an FIR against Upreti with the police on behalf of the victim, demanding further investigation into the case.

According to the victim, Upreti had been sexually abusing her since 2012, when she was just 11 and had threatened to kill her if she spoke of it to anyone.

CIB handed Upreti to the court which sent him to Dilli Bazaar Prison for execution of the verdict.

The overall crime rate fell by 17.87 per cent in the fiscal 2014-15 compared to the last fiscal in Kathmandu, but incidents of rape saw an upward trend, as per data maintained by Metropolitan Police Range, Teku.

4,601 incidents of crime were reported in the fiscal 2014-15 whereas, 5,602 were reported in the year before and 3,575 incidents were reported in 2012-13. However, more rape cases were reported last fiscal compared to 2013-14.