Girlfriend of Navaraj BK has told the police that her father and elder brother encircled and killed the six youths including Navaraj in Chaurjahari-8, Rukum on May 23.
"I knew after Dilli Malla came to my home in the evening and said two youths have been swept away by Bheri river," she has said in the statement on June 9. "I heard about death of Navaraj BK when I talked with my friends on Facebook the next day. " I am fully confident, after learning later, that my father, elder brother and others chased and encircled Navaraj BK and others, and thrashed the six of them to death after taking them to the place of incident."
She has revealed that she knew Navaraj through Facebook in March 2019 and have regularly talked and met him after that. "He would ask me for marriage over the phone but I had been saying that I am a minor."
She has added that Navaraj had come to her village on a few occasions earlier and his dad, ward chairman Dambar Bahadur Malla and others had handed him to the police when he came near my house at around eight-nine in the evening on April 29.
She has said she blocked Navaraj on Facebook after that and would communicate with him through messages from her junior brother's cell phone. She has claimed she did not know that Navaraj was coming with his friends on the day of incident.
"I did not know. Navaraj had apparently told Sushma Malla, my younger sister by relation, that he will come with friends to take me once the lockdown ends," she has contended. "My sister apparently relayed that to my mother. I knew about that only when my mother told me later."
She has said she knew that Navaraj and others had arrived that day through her mother when she was watching television. "I came out after my mother told me she scolded and sent them back. But I did not see the boys. The women from the village had gathered outside. I didn't go to the place of incident. I don't know what happened that afternoon."
The police have filed complaint against her and her mother accusing them of being complicit in murder of six youths. The charge sheet filed on Sunday has claimed that 32 persons including her father, elder brother, ward chairman and others brutally murdered the six youths. They have also been charged of promoting untouchability and caste discrimination.
Her mother has conceded that they had planned to murder Navaraj if he came to take the daughter. "Our family had deliberated and planned to murder him thinking that we will be dishonored if the dalit were to marry our daughter and it is better to kill him as he cannot marry if killed," the mother has said in the statement.
The mother has claimed that ward chairman Dambar Bahadur Malla was also complicit in the plan and he called other villagers who arrived with sticks, stones and sickles after the youths came, and chased and encircled them to kill them. "I returned back to home after that and I didn't see what happened after that. I later knew that the youths were chased to the bank of Bheri river, six were beaten to death and thrown in the Bheri river, and 12 others were seriously injured."
Her husband has corroborated about the plan but claimed that the six youths had jumped into the river in compulsion after being chased and beaten by him and the villagers.
Six youths of Jajarkot were killed when Navaraj, 21, of Bheri municipality 4, Jajarkot went with 18 others to elope with his 17-year-old girlfriend of Chaurjahari-8, Soti on May 23. The bodies were later recovered from the Bheri river at the border of Jajarkot and Western Rukum.
