Compensation announced for victims’ families in Soti incident

Kathmandu, August 13

The government has decided to provide Rs 1 million each to the families of victims in the Soti incident.

Meeting of the Council of Ministers decided to provide monetary relief to the families of the victims of the incident that occurred on May 23 at Soti, Chaurjahari-8, in Rukum (West).

A nine-member special Parliamentary Committee was formed under the coordination of lawmaker Devendra Poudel to probe the incident. The committee had also recommended compensation to the families of the victims in the form of opportunity for education, employment, health facility and security. Free treatment and compensation to those injured in the incident were recommended by the committee.

The incident took the lives of Nawaraj BK, Ganesh Budhamagar and Sanjiv BK from Bheri Municipality-4, Lokendra Sundra Sunar and Govinda Sahi from Bheri Municipality-11 of Jajarkot, and Tikaram Nepali from Chaurjahari-1 of Rukum Paschim.

On the fateful day, Nawaraj, 21, of Bheri Municipality, Jajarkot, along with his 18 friends, had gone to Soti village to escort a girl from the ‘Malla’ clan, the so called higher caste. The group, however, was confronted by the locals in Soti village, including ward chair Dambar Bahadur Malla and the girl’s family at 6:30pm that day.

The boys were reportedly ‘beaten mercilessly’ and chased towards the Bheri River ‘forcing’ them to jump into it.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on August 14, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.