RAJBIRAJ, SEPTEMBER 18

Police have arrested two persons in connection with the rape of a teenage girl in Saptari’s Dakneshwori Municipality-7.

Suman Kumar Mandal, 18, and Saroj Kumar Mandal, 20, of Dakneshwori Municipality-7, were arrested last night from Saptari’s Balan Bihul Rural Municipality.

“While two have been arrested, we have intensified the search for two others accused of raping the girl,” said the District Police Office information officer DSP Tilak Bharati. On Tuesday, 17-year-old Sangita Mandal of Dakneshwori Municipality-7, committed suicide after she was raped by four youths of the village while she had out in the field the previous morning.

After her mother reported about her daughter’s rape, leaders of the village had met and pressured the victim and her family to dismiss the incident in return for some compensation. The girl, reportedly left distraught by the villagers’ decision, is said to have hanged herself. Regarding the incident, police have detained village leaders Satya Narayan Mandal, Basudev Mandal and Jayakanta Mandal for their alleged involvement in the gathering meant for dismissing the case.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on September 19, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.

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