The Bhutanese Leading the way.
The High court in a recent hearing of the Wamrong battery and trespassing case asked the police to investigate the current health status of the victim Sonam Peldon.
As claimed by the victim’s lawyer, she is not able to work as she used to do before and that she has to visit the hospital quite often. However, the suspect Tshering Yangki claimed that the victim could work.
Police had charged the victim Sonam Peldon and her son Yeshi Jimba for assault, however the Wamrong Dungkhag court acquitted both of them though there was an evidence of assault against the victim’s son. The police is not satisfied with the judgment.
In addition, though the police charged Sonam Peldon with petty misdemeanor, the court altered the charges and charged her with misdemeanor.
With regard to the post made by Namgay Zam, a freelance journalist who is an Executive Director of Journalist Association of Bhutan (JAB) on the matter, police said that though they asked Wamrong Dungkhag court to summon Namgay Zam before the court of law, the court dismissed their request after which they did not felt the need of putting up the issue in the higher bench.
The High Court had asked the police to investigate on the legality of fund raising after the suspect made it an issue in court.
The Police said that they were not able to find any act mentioning the legality of online fund raising, however, on 14th March the Department of Law and Order under MoHCA issued a notification stating that fund raising without their permission is illegal.
Background
The alleged battery initially took place on 26 April 2020 at around 4:30 PM when a fight broke out between the alleged suspect Tshering Yangki and victim Sonam Peldon upon which the victim got admitted in Reserboo hospital for three days. Following that day, on 27 April the case was reported to police through phone call by the victim’s husband and accordingly the OC along with one clerk went to hospital.
Since the victim was in stable condition and declared as non-grievous by the doctor, police did not find the basis to arrest Tshering Yangki. On 29 April the victim’s husband withdrew the case. However, the police re-registered the case as sought by the victim’s father.
The victim was referred to Mongar hospital where she got admitted for 11 days and as per the medical report, the injury was non-grievous. Police then forwarded the case to court on May 21 2020.
