Parents of Nirmala Pant, the 13-year-old girl from Kanchanpur who was raped and murderd some three and a half months ago, in an attempt to put pressure on the authorities to identify and arrest the culprit(s) behind the crime, started their indefinite sit-in protest in front of District Administration Office, Kanchanpur from 11am on Sunday.

Body of Nirmala was found on a sugarcane field in Bhimdutta Municipality of Kanchanpur on July 27, a day after she was reported missing. Postmortem report showed that the teenager had been raped and strangulated to death.

Nirmala’s parents, Yagya Raj Pant and Durga Devi Pant, had announced the protest by organising a press meet before the beginning of Tihar festival.

Nirmala’s father, Yagya Raj said they were left with no options but to stage protest as the governent has been able to identify the culprit(s) though three months have passed after the incident took place. 

“I will continue to stage the sit-in until I get justice,” said Yagya Raj, during a discussion with women rights activists and locals at Khullamanch, Mahendranagar on Saturday, “I will do anything to put pressure on the authorities to find my daughter’s killers.”

Likewise, women rights activists argued the major reason behind the failure to identify the perpetrators was the authority's dereliction in bringinging the police officers involved in mishandling the case under ongoing investigations.

Following a widespread criticism for the role of police in the investigation, the then Kanchanpur Police Chief SP Dilli Raj Bista and Inspector Jagdish Bhatta were suspended from duty.

On October 15 Inspector General (IG) Sarbendra Khanal had recommended the Home Ministry to dismiss both officers for their dubious role in tampering with the evidence in the 13-year-old girl’s rape and murder.

The recommendation to dismiss the two officers followed analysis of the report submitted by the high-level committee formed by the Ministry of Home Affairs led by Joint Secretary Hari Prasad Mainali, IG Khanal’s field visit and preliminary briefing of AIG Basnyat.

 Following the recommendation, the Home Ministry on October 26 sacked Bista and Bhatta from service with immediate effect for mishandling initial probe into the July rape and murder of Panta.

The Mainali-led committee, formed on August 23 after the police investigation of the incident was found to be dubious and failed to make any progress, had found that the Kanchanpur Police had made several lapses while investigating the rape and murder of 13-year-old Pant in Kanchanpur.

Also read: Family mourns, and a country recoils at teen girl’s rape and murder

Meanwhile, three police teams, including one from the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) of Nepal Police, are probing the rape case. However, these police teams have failed to make any headway into the matter.

Similarly, police have been collecting DNA samples of suspects in an attempt to identify the culprit(s) but until now they have not been able to match any of the samples against DNA samples recovered from the victim’s body.

Police, on September 13, had collected blood samples of suspended Superintendent of Police Dilli Raj Bista, his son Kiran Bista, and Aayush Bista, nephew of Bhimdutta Municipality Mayor Surendra Bista. However, a forensic report found no match between the DNA samples taken from them with that of the victim’s vaginal swab.

On October 30, the police again collected DNA samples of four more suspects and sent them to Kathmandu for test. The results are yet to come.