The District Attorney Office in Kathmandu filed two separate cases against Manoj Pandey at the Kathmandu District Court on Wednesday demanding a jail term of 18 years for human trafficking and child sexual abuse.

Ganga Prasad Poudel, chief of the District Government Attorney Office, confirmed the filing of the case.

“We have filed a case demanding a maximum of 18 years of imprisonment against Pandey,” said Poudel. “A jail term of 10 to 15 years has been sought under the human trafficking offence while another three-year jail term has been sought for child sexual abuse.”

On Tuesday, the police submitted an investigative report to the Kathmandu District Attorney Office after completing the investigation.

Police on May 21 had arrested Pandey, the owner of Model Global Visas Consultancy, after a woman shared harrowing experiences of being raped at the hands of Pandey some eight years ago on social media. She was 16 then.

In the videos, she had shared how Pandey, who was the organiser of a pageant called Miss Global International 2014, had drugged and raped her in a hotel room.

In the clips, the victim had also shared that she was abused by Pandey for six months during which he invited one of his friends as well where they abused her sexually.

Although it seemed like a rape case in the beginning, due to the statute of limitations, where there is time limitation of one year to file rape and sexual violence cases, the case was instead filed under Human Trafficking and Transportation (Control) Act 2007.

In Nepal, the statute of limitations is not applicable in human trafficking-related cases.

Section 4 (2b) of the Act defines trafficking as “taking anyone from his/her home, place of residence or from a person by any means such as enticement, inducement, misinformation, forgery, tricks, coercion, abduction, hostage, allurement, influence, threat, abuse of power and by means of inducement, fear, threat or coercion to the guardian or custodian and keeping him/her in one’s custody or taking to any place within Nepal or abroad or handing him/her over to somebody else for the purpose of prostitution and exploitation.”

Police are set to present Pandey in Kathmandu District Court on Thursday.

The court will decide whether to keep Pandey in custody until the final verdict or to release him on bail or on a general date.