Dechen Tshomo

Paro Police  arrested a chef with one of the resorts in Paro in connection to the rape and murder of the eight-year-old girl in Paro on December 19.

He was detained for interrogation after his DNA fingerprints matched one of those found on the string resembling a shoelace or a hood cord that strangled the girl’s neck.  The DNA reports from the United Kingdom confirmed the match.

Of the three different fingerprints found on the lace, police said one was of the victim and one of the second perpetrator.

On September 19, when the girl did not reach home after school, the mother and neighbours searched for her. According to sources that was when a teacher of Drugyel Lower Secondary School called the chef’s wife asking the name of the child she picked up from school that evening.

The couple earlier told Kuensel that they gave a lift to the girl after they saw her waiting near the roadside drenched in rain. The couple dropped the girl near a junction and the wife helped her cross the road after which they drove to the bank in town.

The couple joined the search team and the chef was the first one to spot the body in a bush on the same night above Satsam Choeten. She was strangulated and there was evidence of rape.

According to police, the chef in his earlier statement said that he touched one of the feet of the deceased to check if she was alive.

The prime suspect, who is from Tsento in Paro, was released after his DNA sample tested negative in DNA report from the UK.    

However, police said this does not rule him out of being involved in the case. The prime suspect has a past record of incest and was earlier convicted for illicit trafficking of controlled substance and cattle lifting. Police found videos of child pornographies on his phone.

Police received the DNA reports of three batches and all suspects tested negative for rape. Police are now waiting for the result of the fourth batch of samples.

Police collected blood samples from 980 suspects including non-Bhutanese. DNA samples of about 10 suspects were sent in a batch to the UK and it costs the police about Nu 400,000.