Kathmandu, November 26

Doctors involved in the treatment of Yagya Raj Panta, father of 13-year-old Nirmala, who was raped and murdered on July 26, said today that although the preliminary CT Scan report of Yagya Raj didn’t show ‘infection’ or ‘structural pathology’ in his brain, it would take a few more days to confirm the state of his mental health.

Head of Department of Psychiatry at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital Dr SarojOjha said, “Mental illness is a complex problem. It  cannot always be determined with CT Scan. We need a few more days to study his behaviour to understand what kind of mental illness or psychological problems he is facing.”

Dr Ojha said the CT scan report didn’t show any additional mass, tumour or infection, collectively known as ‘structural pathology’, in YagyaRaj’s brain. He, however, added that only these things did not determine the mental health of a person. “We have noticed some symptoms of mental illness, which need to be studied more carefully. We have to know whether he was having this sort of problem previously or not.”

Yagya Raj, 38, is undergoing treatment at the Intensive Coronary Care Unit, Annex 2, in TUTH. Doctors have not released his health report, but toes of his right foot are in a cast as he suffered fracture when he got aggressive and kicked the window of the vehicle in which he was being transported to the capital from Dhangadi.

Yagya Raj had started showing erratic behaviour on the eighth day of indefinite sit-in protest in front of Kanchanpur District Administration Office. He was brought to Kathmandu yesterday, six days after he showed signs of insanity.

Nirmala’s mother, Durga Devi, who is  withYagya Raj, demanded justice for Nirmala, whose rapist(s) and murderer(s) are yet to be arrested. The activists of #JusticeForNirmala and other organisations have arranged her stay in a guest house near the hospital.