Kathmandu District Court on Monday sentenced Manoj Kumar Jaisi, also known as Manoj Pandey, who is accused of sexually abusing a minor, to a seven-year prison term in the human trafficking case.

According to Deepak Dahal, information officer at the court, Pandey, a beauty pageant organiser, has also been ordered to pay Rs75,000 as compensation to the victim and deposit Rs1,300 to the victim relief fund.

According to section 225 of the Criminal Code, child sexual abuse is punishable by imprisonment for up to three years and a fine of up to Rs30,000.

Earlier, on January 24, Judge Deepak Dhakal’s bench had sentenced Pandey to six months in jail, ordered him to pay Rs50,000 in compensation to the victim, and slapped a fine of Rs5,000 in a child sexual abuse case. The court had also convicted Pandey on human trafficking charge the same day but had not determined the jail term.

Police had arrested Pandey, the owner of Model Global Visas Consultancy, after the victim in multiple TikTok videos shared details of how Pandey sexually abused her some eight years ago. She was 16 then.

In the videos, the victim shared how Pandey, who was the organiser of a beauty pageant called Miss Global International 2014, allegedly drugged and raped her in a hotel room. The victim also claimed that Pandey had photographs and videos of the incident and sexually abused her for the next six months.

Although it seemed like a rape case in the beginning, due to the statute of limitations, the case was instead filed under Human Trafficking and Transportation (Control) Act 2007. In Nepal, the statute of limitations is not applicable in human trafficking-related cases.

Pandey was arrested by the Kathmandu Valley Crime Investigation Office of the Nepal Police on May 21, 2021. The District Attorney’s Office in Kathmandu on June 15 last year had filed two separate cases against Pandey demanding a jail term of 18 years for human trafficking and child sexual abuse. Following a hearing, a single bench of District Judge Prakash Dhungana on June 20 sent Pandey to Dillibazar Jail until a final verdict on the cases.

Published on: 7 February 2023 | The Kathmandu Post