Fallen...an act of crime

“What are you talking about?....why? What have I done?” a girl in her late teen was screaming hysterically at around 1 PM to a man.
The bustling traffic of Putalisadak had prevented her scream to the crowd. No one had heard her voice.
All of a sudden a screeching scream was heard. Then from the room, a man walked out and disappeared in the crowd.

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Act of Terror: A Girl Brutally Killed. Suspect At Large

Kathmandu reporter,
Kathmandu, Aug. 15

A girl who has been identified as Pragati Thapa was brutally murdered on her flat at Putalisadak.
“The murderer is at large and we are trying to catch the culprit,” Police Inspector Ram Kumar Adhikary said.
“I cannot say a word…” said the father, Rajendra Thapa as he consoled his wife.
The locals were outraged with the act.
“How ruthless a person he could have been,” Sita Shah, a local exclaimed.
The deceased hailed from Nepalgunj and lived with her parents. The incident took place when her parents were out to work.
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On hearing the death of their daughter, the father, Rajendra Thapa and mother, Srija Thapa were deeply shocked. While the father was consoling his wife, she wept bitterly, rejecting that Pragati was dead “No! she’s not gone!...She’s NOT DEAD.”

The only time she finally convinced herself of her beloved daughter’s demise was at the funeral…the time when her body was burnt to ashes on the bank of the Bagmati River and left to flow with its current.

Mr. Thapa was in deep sorrow. He had finally burnt her little girl’s body. He sat still; staring at the burning flames of the pyre while friends and relatives extended condolences. He remembered his little girl…how he had raised her on his arms…how the family had lived happily until this fateful day. He wished to run…stop time and save her child from the murderer and yet, he couldn’t. After all, time once gone would never return…like a river, it flowed on a one way direction with no provisions to turn the course! Despite it, the only thing that kept people alive in the minds were that of memories…and the father was reminiscing those very heydays of his only child…

…he remembered her screams, laughter, how they had celebrated their birthdays…the picnics…and yet, on the sight of the burning flames, the memories too burnt to ashes.

From then on, the couple stayed silent throughout the days. Both ached for hearing some words…both fought to speak but nothing came. The only time they spoke was to have dinner. “Dinner is ready” the wife would say and the husband came in silence. There was nothing more to be heard. Both missed the girls’ presence, her laughter, her voice…and yet, nothing was to be done.

A week later, news following the girl’s death came. It said that a suspect was held. However, the police did not disclose the identity. The news was followed by a huge protest. Civil societies condemned the death and demanded prosecution of the accused if the suspect turned to murderer. However, failing to prove the accuser’s involvement, the police released him and sought apology.

The civil society continued to pressurize the police to find the culprit. The search intensified. Interrogations were conducted...
“I was walking down the street of Putalisadak when I saw a heavy man walking nervously. He stared here and there in fear of being caught by someone. There were some stains of blood on his white shirt. He was trying to hide it,” a person who had come to the police station to help said.

Finally the culprit was being narrowed down…

The inspector was listening intently to the speaker. He lit a cigarette, took a puff. Then he called an artist and asked the speaker to describe the man he had seen.

“He was stout and had half bald hair. He wore spectacles. He had an oval face with some cuts on the right side of his forehead”… the artist was sketching a portrait based on the description being mentioned… “he had black eyes and had a cut on his left.”

The painter showed the sketch and the man confirmed that he was the person.

The police thanked the man. They departed. Then, Adhikary along with his dozen men went to the very place of the incident.

The scene inside the room was of silence and solitude. Grief and somber sounds of clamoring steel glasses were only to be heard. Time seemed to stop. Motions seemed to take eternity to complete an action. Only when the mourning couples saw the police did this silence break. The intruder was unexpected. His appearance came as a subtle surprise. The parents’ faces were sulky, etching nothing but sorrow. They stood upon his arrival.

The inspector observed the surrounding. The room was spotless. On the walls hung photographs of the once happy family whose joy had been snatched by an omen. Then his eyes stuck on a single portrait of a beautiful girl with a smile that was hard to ignore. She had those mystic eyes that spoke of depth…

“Yes inspector, have you found the culprit?” the worried mother queried.
“Yes we have” the inspector said.
“Where’s he? Who’s he? I WILL KILL HIM” Mr. Thapa spoke in rage.

Hearing the words of the father gave the inspector a hunch of how he loved his daughter. He had a second thought…there was silence.
The officers cordoned the father and held him on his arms.
“Mr. Thapa, you are arrested for the murder of your daughter, Pragati Thapa.” The inspector said.

Upon hearing the words, Mrs. Thapa was struck by lightening. Mr. Thapa’s face etched fear and he started screaming frantically,

“WHAT? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? YOU’RE INSANCE. I CANNOT KILL MY DAUGHTER! I LOVE HER!”

The mother’s head turned from the intruder to her husband, back and forth. She had lost her words. It was as if her world was falling apart. She finally gathered some words and said,
“Sir, you must be mistaken.”
“No ma’am. We are not” the intruder assured. Then the officers escorted Mr. Thapa while his wife stared still to the closing door and began to cry hysterically…

In the station, the pretences of Mr. Thapa was taking a different turn. In the beginning he was rejecting the deed but later in agony, his face hardened and admitted the crime.

“She had some to know of my affair with a woman. She was threatening me that she’d tell her mother. I loved her very much. I was infuriated. There was knife in front of me. I cut her arms. She began to bleed and cry…. “Why? What have I done?” she was saying…then I strangled her to death.”

The news reached to Mrs. Thapa and the culprit was behind the bars. She had no emotions…had nothing to say.
All of a sudden her world had really fallen apart into irreparable fragments…the spring where she had lived happily was just an illusion. Underneath the spring was autumn…the seasons of solitude!

The mother then woke up. She relieved those gone moments in tears of agony and loneliness. The world to her had never looked so strange till now. She felt as an alien to her surrounding…alien to herself and the bonds that were termed as relationships. After all, this futile earth had nothing to give apart from snatching things…

She forged a letter and hung herself.
She had finally ridden herself from the pretences of eternal autumn to the sound realms of bliss. She had departed to the state of eternal happiness…far away from the bustling world…far away where human minds could never intrude the merry cadence of voices that sung in delight…


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Father turns Culprit. Mother commits suicide.

By Rakesh Shaha,
Kathmandu, Sep. 20

After a month’s long intensive search for the culprit of Pragati Thapa, the police has finally caught the deceased’s father as the murderer.
Rajendra Thapa had ruthlessly strangled his daughter after she threatened him to inform her mother about his affair with another woman.
“Thapa had murdered Pragati in order to maintain secrecy about his affair,” Inspector Ram Kumar Adhikary said.
Adhikary, along with his team of a dozen officers had finally narrowed the murderer by the help of a person whose identity has not been disclosed.
“This is insane,” Sita Kayasta, a mother of two exclaimed.
“This happened in movies…not in reality…” said another woman in total shock.
The relatives were unable to utter a word.
Despite the triumph, another grief struck the relatives of the deceased girl. Upon hearing the news that the fatherhad killed his own daughter, Mrs. Srija Thapa, the mother committed suicide. Before that, she forged a note which read,

“…the world is strange. Nothing is as subtle a surprise as the truth itself. The reality is pain striking and we are perfect strangers. What we see…what we believe is just an illusion. Underneath hides numerous pretences. Life never was meant for this…it was meant for love…
My husband had loved his child dearly…but now, I doubt if he did so…nothing is certain now…I doubt my existence and the existence of the world itself. Someday the world will fall apart and we will start afresh…a world of love and joy…with no pretences and pain save merry cadence of voices that sings in delight to the eternal spring…
The cause of my death is my husband.”
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The death of Mrs. Thapa reached Mr. Thapa and he stared still. He was unable to speak…he felt nothing…