Security Personnel charged for the Killing of Rajkumar Chepang Faces Imprisonment for 9 months

  July 12, 2021 By: INSEC

The district court of Chitwan has sentenced Chiran Kumar Buda, security personnel of the Chitwan National Park to the jail term of nine months after stating him guilty for the murder of Rajkumar Chepang, 24, of Rapti Municipality-2.

Judge Gayatri Regmi’s bench has sentenced Budha to nine months’ jail term and charged him with NRs. 9,000 as fine and NRs. 200,000 as compensation by claiming partial indictment.

According to Shrestedar Ishwor Acharya, of district court Chitwan, initially, a case of murder was registered against the accused mentioning it as intentional murder but later the court declared it as unintentional killing.

Seven persons, including the deceased, were detained and tortured by the security personnel of the park on July 16, 2020, while they were on their way to search for Niguro (Fiddlehead Fern) and Ghoongi (Snails) in the buffer zone of the national park.

According to the victims, the army tortured those five men and verbally abused the other two women.

Santosh Tamang, a victim of the incident, said that Rajkumar was not able to walk after the beating and two of the other victims had supported him to walk back home.

Rajkumar Chepang was beaten and tortured by Buda who was guarding the Chitwan National Park. Chepang died on July 23, 2020.

Bishnu Lal Chepang, the father of the deceased, had lodged a complaint at the District Police Office on September 10, 2020.

Earlier, the family of the victim had filed the complaint on July 26 with the District Police Office, Chitwan, alleging that Rajkumar’s death was due to beating and torture by the security personnel of the national park. Later on September 10, 2020, Bishnu Lal again filed a complaint mentioning the name of the perpetrator after the death of his son.

Accused Buda was arrested on September 28, 2020.

The family of the victim received NRs. 700,000 from the Chitwan National Park and NRs. 300,000 Rapti Municipality.

Iman Singh Lama, the deputy chief of Rapti municipality, has built a house for the family of the extremely deprived marginalized community at his own expense.

Human rights organizations including INSEC and Advocacy Forum had made the report of the incident public by drawing the attention of the government through the National Human Rights Commission to monitor the incident, take action against those involved in the incident, provide compensation to the families of the victims, and make necessary arrangements to prevent such incidents from happening again.


Dipendra Adhikari