IANS
Kathmandu

India’s Haryana state government has declared that it will provide Rs300,000 (Nepali Rs480,000) as compensation to the family of a 28-year-old mentally challenged woman from Rajapur in Bardiya who was raped and murdered in Rohtak, 85km from Delhi, last month.
The victim’s relatives said Haryana’s Agriculture Minister Om Prakash Dhankar made the announcement after the police charged eight men, including a Nepali
national, for the crime.
Meanwhile, Senior Superintendent of Police Shashank Anand, of Rohtak police, has informed police in Bardiya that the perpetrators have been remanded in police custody
for further investigation.
The accused include Nepali national Santosh B K of Pyuthan, Mandir Singh, Pramod Jat, Sunil Jat, Sarowar Singh, Rajesh Jat, Sunil Singh and Pawan of Rohtak.
According to the victim’s relatives, one of the perpetrators, Sombir Jat, committed suicide after the incident.
A group of nine men had gang raped and subsequently murdered the woman on
February 1.
Police found her body four days later in a field by a highway at Bahu Ahkbarpur near Rohtak.
“We haven’t yet received the DNA test results and are yet to find an advocate to fight the case on our behalf,” the victim’s sister Janaki said, adding that they were trying to find a lawyer on their own though the state government will appoint one for them.
Legal practitioners, however, are unwilling to fight the case fearing local goons.
Janaki, meanwhile, said the authorities have provided security to her family as they were under constant threats from criminal gangs. She and her husband earn a living operating a small mobile food stall in the Indian city. The victim had gone to Rohtak in order to seek treatment for her mental ailment.
Janaki said various organisations representing Nepalis living in India have been helping them with the case.
CANADIAN JAILED FOR CHILD ABUSE: A Canadian man began his jail term in Nepal yesterday after being convicted of sexually assaulting a disabled boy, police said.
“Ernest Fenwick MacIntosh has been sent to Nakku Jail, starting today, where he will serve a seven-year term,” said Pawan Giri, a police officer from Lalitpur district, where the trial took place, DPA reported.
MacIntosh was also fined Rs1mn ($10,000), he said.
The Lalitpur district court on Sunday convicted the 71-year-old, after he was arrested in December for sexually assaulting a nine-year-old disabled boy at a welfare centre in the district.
Police said he offered the boy gifts and the possibility of a prosthetic arm before
assaulting him.