DHANGADHI: The District Court today sentenced four men to life-in-prison for raping and murdering a woman in June 2018 in Kailali.

A single bench of District Judge Krishna Prasad Nepal handed life imprisonment to the convicts -- Suraj Chaudhary, Bhuvan Khati, Ganesh Baduwal and Manoj Bogati -- all from Gauriganga Municipality-11 in the district, after finding them guilty, informed Tahasildar (court official) Nara Bahadur Negi.

Additionally, the District Court sentenced Tapendra Bogati, another local, to five years in prison for hiding sensitive information regarding the brutal incident. Although not directly involved in the crime, he has been charged for not disclosing information he held regarding the rape and murder.

The convicts were declared guilty of abduction, rape and murder.

On June 26, 2018, Maya BK (21), a social mobiliser in Gauriganga, had left home for work. Her body was recovered from Chapathali Community Forest on June 29 after she went missing for three days. A week long police investigation revealed that BK had been gang-raped, and then murdered.

On July 6, 2018, Kailali Police made public the aforementioned five in connection with the crime.