The Sarpang District Court sentenced a 31-year-old teacher from one of the schools of Sarpang dzongkhag to 20 years in prison for the criminal attempt to rape and child molestation.
The judgment was passed on the 30th of last month after the Office of the Attorney General and the convict appealed to the District Court against the judgement passed by the Gelegphu Dungkhag court. The Dungkhag court passed a concurrent sentence of four and a half years in prison for molesting six students beginning of this year. The incident took place in 2017.
However, the Sarpang District Court overruled the Gelegphu Drungkhag Court’s concurrent sentence and passed a consecutive sentence. The convict was sentenced for 5 years in prison for the attempt to rape and molestation for one of the girls and 15 years for molesting five girls. The convict was further asked to pay compensation of Nu. 22,500 to the attempt to rape victim and Nu 11,250 each to the five girls.
The case came into limelight when one of the students decided to drop her school with the convicted teacher’s bad conduct. The victim’s parent sought help from local volunteers of the non-government organization and filed a report to Gelegphu police. He was arrested in November 2017.
Karma Wangdi.
