Rajbiraj, October 7

After eight days in Indian prison, Dev Narayan Yadav and his son Ajaya of Saptari’s Koiladi Tilathi Rural Municipality-1 have been freed today. They were kept in Birpur prison over a human trafficking and hostage-taking case pressed against them.

The duo was released after the single bench of judge Lal Bahadur Prasad of Birpur court’s order that invalidated the abduction case upon hearing the statement of the supposedly-abducted Indian girl and Ajaya’s wife, who clarified that she had married Ajaya on her own accord, not kidnapped.

Following the arrest of their kin, Dev Narayan’s family had reached Birpur taking Ajaya’s wife Jyoti along four days ago. “Though late, the verdict has served us justice,” Ajaya’s kin said.

In her statement, Jyoti had stated that the abduction case filed by her brother Sanjiv against her husband and father-in-law was fake. Earlier, police had arrested and filed a case against Dev Narayan and his son acting on a complaint filed by Sanjiv at the Kunauli police post.

Commenting over the arrest, the Yadav family has described the incident as a set up to settle an old score. According to them, the case was purely fabricated by the Indian side to avenge the retaliation of the locals of Tilathi of Nepal led by Dev Narayan against the construction of a dam in the Das Gaza area last year.

Earlier, Home Minister Janardan Sharma had instructed the chief district officer of Saptari to take immediate initiatives to free the duo.