The response of Sita Rai’s family on Monday’s court ruling against her rapist, Police Constable Parshu Ram Basnet, was halfhearted at best.
Rai’s family members are unhappy with the verdict of the Kathmandu District Court that sentenced Basnet to five-and-a-half years in prison and compensation of Rs 50,000. “The court should have handed down maximum jail term to the man that dishonoured my daughter. She has suffered a lot, mentally and physically, for everything that happened with her. The court’s decision was rather lenient,” said Sita’s father on Tuesday. He added that the court’s order to provide Rs 50,000 as compensation to Sita was also way below their expectation.
Sita’s lawyer Laxmi Rai, too, believes that the court issued its verdict without fully comprehending the gravity of the case. “Given the seriousness of the case, we were expecting the court to sentence the defendant to maximum seven years in jail,” she said. “And although there is no law specifying the amount of compensation for a certain crime, we were certainly expecting that the court would award more than Rs 50,000.”
Twenty-year-old Sita was raped by Basnet on the pretext of helping her right after she had been robbed of Rs 218,000 by the Department of Immigration (DoI) officials at the Tribhuvan International Airport upon her return from Saudi Arabia. The accused DoI officials, Ram Prasad Koirala and Tikaraj Pokharel, are absconding while a fraud case against them is pending in the court.
Sita’s family members have urged the authorities concerned to arrest Koirala and Pokharel at the earliest. “We hope the court will take up the matter immediately and give a satisfying verdict on this case at least,” said Sita’s father.

Published on: 24 April 2013 | The Kathmandu Post