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KATHMANDU: The Kanchanpur District Administration Office has issued curfew orders in Bhimdattanagar municipality as situation turned tense following protests against the administration for failing to produce ‘real’ culprit responsible for rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl.

UPDATED

At least eight persons have been injured in the clash between security personnel and demonstrators in Bhimdattanagar, Kanchanpur today.

The locals of Bhimdattanagar have continued their demonstration for the third day accusing police of failing to arrest real culprit(s) behind the murder of and rape of a minor.

According to Duty Officer Constable Parmananda Joshi at the Kanchanpur District Police Office (DPO), eight persons including two police personnel were injured in the clash.

17-year-old Arjun Bahadur Bhandari has sustained bullet wounds in his right leg while five other persons were injured by bullet fragments.

Bhandari has been referred to Dhangadi hospital for further treatment while the injured including police head constable Harka Bahadur Paal and constable Mahesh Bhatta are undergoing treatment at Mahakali Zonal Hospital in Kanchanpur, according to hospital sources.

Police said that Bhimdattanagar area has become tense as the agitators have taken to the street to enforce bandh and demonstrations are being held in front of district administration office and at various other points on the highway and elsewhere.

According to Joshi, police have been compelled to resort to force as the demonstrators have become violent. Despite firing several shells of tear gas to disperse the demonstrators, police have yet to take the situation under control.

It has been learnt that some of the demonstrators have picketed the DPO and burnt the effigy of the chief at the DPO.

Earlier, police on Monday had paraded 41-year-old man of Baghphanta, Bhimdatta Municipality, identifying him as a murder suspect who had raped and murdered the thirteen year old girl. The locals, however, have refused to buy the police findings. They say the police are trying to dismiss the case by wrongfully picking up a mentally unstable person as suspect. They have also vowed to continue their protest until the real culprit is nabbed.

Chief District Officer Kumar Khadka said, “We held a meeting yesterday in which the victim’s kin had agreed to file an FIR against persons they suspected but neither they filed any FIR nor stopped the agitation”

The victim’s father has also alleged that the police had piled pressure on him to file an FIR against the paraded person. The police, however, have denied the charge and said that they had only asked him to file an FIR against anyone he suspected to be responsible for the murder.

The minor victim had gone to her friend’s house to fetch a notebook on July 26 and was found dead in a sugarcane field near the road in Ward No 12 the next day.

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