The Bhutanese Leading the way.
It all started with a Rimdro conducted in a home at Chubar Chiwog under Doteng Gewog a few days before the fateful night of 31st March 2026.
The suspect, a college student of Norbuling Rigter College (NRC), who was staying in the building of the complainant’s uncle, misunderstood the Rimdro as being black magic performed against him.
By the evening of 31st March 2026, the suspect was behaving in an erratic manner, and the complainant who was worried for the safety of his younger sister, who is a partner of the suspect, called them to his apartment in the same building on a higher floor.
Alcohol was consumed and they spent some time together, and the suspect went to his quarters downstairs late at night. However, around 2 or 3 am, he was behaving erratically telling the complainant that he had heard that the victim was planning to come with others to attack and kill him.
He asked the complainant to call the police so that they could take him into safe custody before the attack happened.
The complainant did not call the police as he did not see any threat, and then the suspect went berserk in his rented accommodation using a crowbar to break the windows in the house and the railings. This is when the complainant called the police.
The suspect blamed the complainant’s family for conducting the Rimdro, which he described as black magic. He then grabbed a crowbar and headed to the complainant’s father’s house, located a short distance away.
There, he damaged a Bolero and a power tiller belonging to the complainant’s father. He then proceeded to a neighbouring house, where he damaged the front door of the local village Tshogpa’s residence.
The distance from the suspect’s residence to the college is approximately 1.5 kilometres. He then set off on foot towards the college to attack the victim.
Along the way, he crossed a bridge without side railings and stopped at a shop that sold alcohol, where he was known to drink. He attempted to enter the shop and subsequently damaged property there before continuing towards the college.
It was at this point that a police vehicle spotted him. Upon seeing the police vehicle, he attacked it and then fled on foot, leaving the main road.
Before reaching the college, he also attacked a Hyundai Creta and smashed the windows of another shop.
The suspect did not enter the college through the main gate, where a security guard was stationed. Instead, he approached from the rear of the campus, taking advantage of his familiarity with the college layout.
CCTV footage captured the suspect on the college premises around that time.
He then went up to the room of the victim and launched a severe attack on the victim with the crowbar that left extensive injuries including brain damage.
The attack caused serious head injuries, including a skull fracture and brain trauma, which required 26 stitches. The victim temporarily lost his ability to speak and had to communicate by typing when this paper visited him in hospital.
He also had another wound at the back of his head, which required six stitches. In addition, he sustained a deep injury on his left leg that required seven stitches.
Visible bruises were also seen on the left side of his chest and on his right thigh which were bandaged up.
The OAG is charging the suspect with premeditated attempt to murder which is more serious than the charge recommended by the police of attempted involuntary manslaughter.
The OAG is going with a tougher charge as the OAG feels that the attack was pre-meditated shown in the fact that the person traveled 1.5 km at night with a crowbar with the clear intent to harm the victim, and it was not a crime of passion or momentary loss of temper.
The OAG is also charging him with 9 counts of malicious mischief for the destruction of various properties along the way.
On the side of the suspect when he was asked why he resorted to all the violence ending with the attack on the victim, he said he thought some black magic rituals were done against him on the day of the Rimdro leading to his later attack on the property and vehicles of the complainant and his father and the Tshogpa.
On being asked why he attacked the victim, he said he felt that the victim was talking behind his back and defaming him which is why he also attacked the liquor shop, as he heard that one story about him was that he drinks and does not pay.
The suspect also seems to have undergone some kind of auditory hallucination, whereby he thought the victim was coming with others to attack him. This is what he had initially asked the complainant to hand him over the police for safe custody as he feared the victim was coming for him.
The medical report said the findings are suggestive of a possible acute psychotic episode characterized by paranoid ideation with a need to rule out auditory hallucination.
Strangely when the investigation was done, the only commonality was that the suspect and the victim were in the same class and were roommates also until the suspect left the hostel and started staying outside.
According to classmates, there were no known fights or disputes between the two with the same feedback from hostel residents.
The victim’s family has been demanding action against the complainant too as the victim said he saw the complaintanat standing with suspect when they entered his room.
The victim’s family suspects that the victim was attacked by both of them when the victim passed out after the second blow on his head.
However, the police investigation could not establish the attack by the complainant or his presence there as he did not appear on CCTV footages in college and his family members vouched for his presence back at home on the night of the attack.
This was not the first attack on the campus as on the night of 13th September 2025, a 20-year-old former student was assaulted, while asleep in his hostel room.
The incident occurred around 2:30 am when the victim, then a first-year student in his first semester, was asleep. The alleged main suspect is said to have entered the room with a group and attacked him with an axe.
The assault left the student with multiple and deep head injuries, including lacerations to the parietal, occipital and temporal regions, as well as injuries below the left eye, bruising around the eye and shoulder, and a laceration on the right forearm.
In this second case, the student who was deeply traumatized, had to drop out of college.
After reporting by this paper on the above cases, the Royal University of Bhutan sent its team to the college to investigate and it came up with its own report issuing a warning to even review its affiliate status and asked for remedial measures.
The Ministry of Education and Skills Development (MoESD) said it is reviewing whether the college followed norms and the Education Minister Lyonpo Yeezang De Thapa said if such situation arises in any of the colleges, the ministry will take it very seriously, to the extent that the college may be asked to close down, if they do not follow the required procedures, norms and conditions of colleges.
