KATHMANDU - The discovery this week of the decapitated body of a 17-year-old girl abducted in Kathmandu has sent shockwaves through Nepal, where police say kidnapping for ransom is becoming a "cottage industry".
High school student Khyati Shrestha was snatched on June 5 after an acquaintance lured her to the kidnapper's apartment.
Later that day, her father received a text message to say she had been kidnapped and demand a one-million-rupee (13,000-dollar) ransom for her return, although police now believe she had already been killed.
The incident has dominated newspaper front pages and alarmed residents in Nepal's capital, where kidnappings for ransom have become increasingly common in recent years as political instability and rampant corruption have led to growing insecurity.
It came weeks after a 10-year-old girl was snatched on her way to school in the capital and whisked away by armed men riding motorbikes, but later rescued by witnesses who chased down her kidnappers.
Police say they are making inroads into tracking down and prosecuting the criminal gangs behind such incidents but they concede that many cases go unreported because families prefer to pay the ransom.
"We are dealing with the problem. More than 90 per cent of the cases filed have been solved and we have been able to free the victim and arrest the kidnappers," said Sher Bahadur Basnet, who deals with kidnapping at the Nepal Police crime division.
"But we can only investigate what is reported to us. Many such cases may have gone unreported."
One Kathmandu businessman told AFP how he was kidnapped at gunpoint while walking home from his office in the capital three months ago, and only released three days later when his family paid a ransom of ten million rupees.
Like many victims, they decided not to inform the police, fearing later reprisals.
"My family had to come up with that huge amount within two days. The initial demand was three times the amount my family eventually paid," said the 35-year-old man, who asked not to be named.
He said the biggest shock came when he decided to tell 10 of his close friends about his ordeal, and discovered that four of them had gone through the same thing.
"It is really shocking that crime is so rampant in our society and we do not talk about it," he said.
Police say kidnappers are targeting the urban middle classes, who have access to money but lack the political connections of the super-rich, and that the easy availability of firearms is fuelling the trend.
"Anyone who has a weapon can go into it (kidnapping) because there is the perception that the government is soft in its approach," said one police officer on condition of anonymity.
"Kidnapping is becoming a cottage industry."
Police say Nepal's affluent Marwari community, an ethnic group with its origins in neighbouring India that is famous for its business and trade links, has become a prime target of the criminal gangs.
According to Pawan Mittal, who runs a group that represents Marwari interests, most victims' families pay the ransom, and some have lost everything they own.
"It's quite impossible to get released without paying a ransom. Many medium-scale businessmen have lost everything they had because they had to pay it in ransom. Not all Marwaris are rich," he told AFP. Mittal said he knew of six Marwaris who had been kidnapped in the past two months. Most were released after paying ransoms, which he said could be up to 200,000 dollars.
"The victims and their families prefer to keep it secret to avoid any further complications," said Mittal. "The mental trauma after the release is unimaginable. They are so scared and life is never the same."
Kidnapping is not a new phenomenon in Nepal and police say official figures do not show an increase - although these do not reflect unreported crimes.
But Basnet said there was evidence kidnappers had become more sophisticated in their approach and admitted the police would have to respond in kind.
"In the end it doesn't matter whether the numbers are up or not," he said.
"It's such an emotive issue that just one case has the power to bring terror to the population."
-AFP
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