The Green Tara Project

Posted on July 12, 2012 by NNLRJ INDIA

SINDHUPALCHOWK: Sindhupalchowk District Court today sentenced a convict of human trafficking to 170 years in jail, the severest jail term ever served to someone in country’s judicial history. A single bench of Judge Ananta Raj Dumre today handed down the longest jail sentence to Bajir Singh Tamang, 37, of Shikharpur VDC, after a hearing on six different counts of trafficking of women. He was accused of selling six girls to brothels in Agra in India at different times in the past. The court has slapped Tamang with a fine of Rs 13 lakh and Rs 9 lakh compensation to the victims (Rs 1.5 lakh to each). The court set Rs 5 lakh fine and 40-year jail each on FIRs filed by two girls of Chautara, Rs 4 lakh fine and 20-year jail each on FIRs filed by two other victims and Rs 4 lakh fine and 25-year jail each on FIRs filed by two other trafficked girls.

The court verdict read that the judgment was taken as per Human Trafficking and Transportation (Control) Act 2007. The court has also slapped Sukuman Dong of Banskharka with 16 years in jail and a fine of Rs 3.5 lakh and sent Tek Bahadur BK of Nawalpur to 12.5 years in prison with Rs 3 lakh fine in connection with the trafficking cases. Government prosecutors Krishnajung Shah and Darma Abatar Koirala and advocates Bheshram Dhakal and Chandra Kumar Basnet had pleaded on behalf of the victims and sought toughest possible punishment to the human traffickers.

Tamang, with his accomplices, had sold the victims in the brothels between 2007 and 2009 by sweet-talking them that he would sent them abroad and get them jobs in big cities. The girls had later managed to escape the brothels and filed FIRs with the help of Sakti Samuha, an organisation working for victims of human trafficking.The court has put cases of Dawa Tamang of Nawalpur and others, who are also accused of aiding Tamang and are at large, on hold.