Nepali grandfather held for two-year-old’s rape

KATHMANDU - A 46-year-old man has been arrested in western Nepal for the alleged rape of his two-year-old granddaughter, police said.

Lila Gandharva, a resident of Dorphirdi village in Tanahun district, had smuggled the two-year-old girl inside his house and kept her hidden there for five days before his neighbours came to know of it and reported him to police.

Gandharva was arrested following the complaint Wednesday, police said.

Though Nepal’s coalition government had said it would make 2010 a violence-free year for women and has set up a hotline in the prime minister’s office to redress complaints by victims, the initiative has wielded little result.

There is a mounting incidence of rape with the victims increasingly being minors. There is also a rapid increase in setting women on fire by close relatives over dowry disputes and torturing women after branding them witches.

Rape cases often go unreported and unpunished.

A policewoman was raped inside a police barracks by her own colleagues who drugged her. However, the government has taken no action against the senior officers involved in the attack, despite repeated calls by the National Human Rights Commission.