Police arrested one of the four perpetrators on charge of raping a 15-year-old girl of Beldandi Rural municipality in Kanchanpur on Saturday.

DSP Krishnaraj Ojha of the District Police Office said,“The other three perpetrators have already been identified and we are searching for them.”

As per the preliminary investigation, the girl was having a puja at her house on Thursday when a friend called her and asked her to meet him out. When she reached the place, four of her friends were already there, and two of them took her in a motorcycle to a place about a kilometre away from her house. That was where one of her friend raped her, police said.

In her statement to police, the victim has said one of the accused who took her on the motorcycle had raped her. The victim is currently under police protection following the medical tests on Friday.

Meanwhile, the District Police Office said that investigation is going on into the case of the rape and murder of 13-year-old Nirmala Panta in Kanchanpur. Talking to the Post, Nirmala’s mother Durgadevi Pant said she is saddened that the police personnel have not found anything so far. “For the second time, police investigators are looking into the case. It’s already been 10 days now, but they haven’t found a clue,” she said.

Nirmala, a resident of Bhimdutta Municipality-2, was found dead in a sugarcane field in Bhimdutta-18 on July 27. A forensic report showed she had been raped and strangulated to death.