Kathmandu, January 1

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli today said he was disappointed that criminal(s) involved in Nirmala Panta’s rape and murder had not yet been brought to book.

Speaking at a programme organised by Nepal Scouts, Oli, however, said the government was committed to bringing the culprit(s) to book and was working accordingly.

He added that police made mistakes while investigating in the beginning. Lately, an additional inspector general of police was involved in the investigation.

“Some surprising things have come up. Some people claimed that they committed the crime, but their DNA does not match,” said Oli.

He said police were capable of cracking such cases and it had identified culprits in 95 per cent of the cases, but it was surprising and disappointing that the police had failed to book the culprit(s) in Nirmala Panta’s case.

The PM also claimed that police were not being allowed to carry out investigation as some ‘powers’ were trying to influence investigation to serve their vested interest. “The powers are dictating who to arrest, who to release and who to interrogate,” he said. “This has affected investigation,” the prime minister added.

Nirmala Panta, 13, of Bhimdutta Municipality, Kanchanpur, was raped and subsequently murdered on July 26. Police has yet to arrest culprit(s) involved in the case.