Kathmandu, Nov. 20: Biren Pradhan, 43, who had been working in Nepal as a teacher, has been sentenced to 39 years behind bars for the gruesome murder of his student last year, after which he cut up her body into pieces and dispersed them in several districts to escape detection.
He became one of the most reviled undertrials after police arrested him for the abduction and killing of a bright and vivacious teen, an incident that shocked the nation and triggered protests by students.
Pradhan, who came to Nepal from India’s Darjeeling town almost two decades ago and had worked as a teacher in a school in Kathmandu valley, coerced a teenaged girl of the same school into helping him.
It all started in June after Pradhan, a gambling addict, ran up huge debts in casinos and began looking for money. He eyed the money raised by the girl’s family for her studies abroad and had sought ransom from the family.