By Phuntsho Choden & Rinzin Wangchuk (Kuensel)
The four main perpetrators of the chilling crime were all minors below 18 years old
20 June, 2009 – The Dorokha dungkhag court in Samtse dzongkhag has sentenced 15 people, involved in the beating up of a 46-year-old mother to death, after local Christian pastors said she was possessed with “evil”, to 1-18 years in prison.
On March 13 this year, victim Kal Maya Rai and her husband had gathered with a group of Christian converts for prayers at Jasbir and Tula Maya Rai’s house in Dumtoe village in Dorokha.
Court officials said that two pastors – Sangeeta Rai and Dil Maya Rai – had asked the gathering to confess their sins. When none did so, the two pastors accused Kal Maya Rai (the victim) of murdering their god in her past life and concluded that she should be killed.
Sangeeta, Dil Maya and two others – Bijay Kumar and Subhash Rai – (all minors, below 18 years) then caught the victim by her hair and started to kick and slap her. They assaulted her first with brooms and then with the handle of a spade, while others, including her husband, watched. Subhash Rai, then, trampled her chest and she started bleeding profusely from her mouth, court officials said.
Four of them then tied the victim’s hands and dragged her outside the house with a rope around her waist, while the victim’s two 13-year-old daughters pleaded with them to spare their mother. The unconscious victim was then tied to an orange tree 15 m away from the house. A mother of five, Kal Maya, was discovered dead by the Dumtoe gup.
The court found the four people to be the main perpetrators and so they should have been sentenced to life imprisonment for their crime, say court officials, but since they were all minors the group was sentenced to 18 years in prison, added the official.
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