Police are preparing to exhume the body of 18-year-old Parbati Buda, who died of snake bite while staying in a Chhau Goth during her menstruation period at Turmakhand Rural Municipality-4 in Achham district on Saturday night.

District Police Chief DSP Rakesh Tandukar said Buda’s body would be exhumed for postmortem as it was buried without conducting the due process. Any deaths apart from natural causes are subject to postmortem as per the law, informed DSP Tandukar.

The police informed that Buda’s body will be brought to Mangalsen-based district hospital for the procedure. The incident side is some 82kms away from the district headquarters.

The incident happened while the victim was asleep with her friend Radhika Buda in the hut.

According to Radhika, the snake fell on the victim from roof and bit in her finger. The Chhaupadi hut is in the farmland far away from the victim’s house. Parbati died in want of timely treatment as the family members knew about the snake bite incident quite late.

The deceased person’s kin had buried the body without a postmortem. The locals tried to downplay the incident after knowing that the police had received the information regarding Buda’s death and will arrive to take her remains for postmortem.

The locals, including, Kabiram Buda, the ward chairman of Turmakhand-4, later had claimed that the snake bit the victim while she was sleeping with her siblings but not in the Chhaupadi hut.

The police headquarters had directed the district police office to send officers to probe the death following a news report ‘Teenage girl dies of snake bite in Chhaupadi hut’ published in the Post.

Chhaupadi is a deeply rooted tradition existing in the western parts of the country, wherein menstruating women and those in the postpartum period are kept in a secluded place away from the house as they are deemed impure and untouchable.

The social evil was declared a criminal offence in August, 2017. The government had introduced a law that stipulated a three-month jail sentence and or Rs 3,000 fine against those convicted of Chhaupadi crime. Despite the anti-Chhaupadi law and campaigns, the tradition is still practiced in remote parts of Achham.

With the Saturday’s incident, 13 girls and women died in Achham district within past 12 years.