Data Ram Rai was taking a post lunch siesta on a wooden bed at his house’s porch on November 21 in Bhojpur. A familiar touch woke him up in the middle of his catnap. No sooner had he started rubbing his eyes than he found somebody hugging him tightly to his chest. As she started weeping buckets, the moment was a dream come true for the 48-year-old man.

“I cannot describe the moment when I met my daughter for the first time in a gap of five years,” he recalled. “I was at a loss. I had no idea what happened on the spur of the moment.” Sita had left home five years ago in her quest for a good life and was incommunicado for years. Her journey had begun from Dharan, Pokhara, Delhi and finally to an afar land in Saudi Arabia that her family was never informed about.

Sita, a gullible young lady, was the third of his five daughters. “She was so innocent. I wonder how she scrapped by,” he said. “I was worried all the time when she did not contact us. I tried to trace her whereabouts with relatives and also informed police but in vain.

The father realised that his credulous little daughter had changed a lot. “She kept on crying as if something was pricking her pain and wouldn’t utter a word why she was in a flood of tears,” he told The Post fixing his eyes on grooves of trees at distant on Wednesday.

She never narrated the TIA incident with anybody. After a week of silence, she confided the incident to her sister Sita while lamenting about not being able to bring any gifts to the family members.

Her sister, who is pursuing her studies in Dharan, was on cloud nine to see her beloved one after a long time, but was devastated on hearing the robbery at the TIA.  After the robbery came to light, the Rai family came to Kathmandu to recover the hard-earned money police had snatched from Sita. Data Ram approached his niece who helped track down the crooked constable, under police custody now for investigation.  Little did they know that it was not just a robbery, but she was also physically abused by the same constable. “I was shocked to hear what my daughter had gone through,” Data Ram recalled, “How would a father feel to hear such a horrific incident?”

Constable Parsuram Basnet had reportedly forced her to sleep with him threatening her of life. “He had warned her that she would kill her if she exposes the incident,” he said.

Later, immigration officers Ram Prasad Koirala, Tek Raj Pokharel and Somnath Khanal came to Basnet’s rescue. They promised to return the looted money and even pledged to chip in as much as they want to keep their mouth shut. “But I did not listen. These criminals robbed her of something that money can never buy. I want justice now,” he said.

Published on: 27 December 2012 | The Kathmandu Post