The Bhutanese Leading the way.
The Royal Bhutan Police (RBP) has forwarded the case of the ‘Water Terrorist,’ Sangay Dorji to the Office of the Attorney General.
Sangay Dorji, who is a man servant not only confessed to pumping in kerosene but also bathroom cleaner Phenol, paint thinner and paint at different times on multiple occasions into the common water supply of five residential Mothithang buildings housing around 100 children, women and men. All of these chemicals are highly poisonous for human consumption having both short term and long term health effects.
Given the serious nature of his crimes the RBP has recommended a third degree charge as per the Bhutan Penal Code.
As per the Bhutan Penal Code the endangerment of a public water source is a felony of the third degree if it creates substantial risk of serious physical injury to the public. A felony of the third degree attracts a minimum sentence of five years and a maximum of nine years for both of which Thrimthue cannot be paid.
A RBP official said that given that the man servant Sangay Dorji in his final statement has taken full ownership for the activities then the full charges would fall on him.
The RBP said that it questioned and tried to find out about the involvement of the family that Sangay Dorji worked for but he would not change his final statement.
However, the RBP has forwarded the entire case to the OAG which will study the case and accordingly frame the relevant charges.
At the time he was caught by the RBP, Sangay Dorji worked as a long time family servant of the owner of the sixth building Pema Jungney, who is a former senior bureaucrat.
What increased the suspicions of the police is that whenever an incident took place it either did not affect the particular sixth building or only a limited affect was seen.
When questioned by the police Sangay Dorji confessed that he was involved and he gave up all the modified bottles, pipe and other equipment he used to tamper the distribution point of the water. The police also found buckets and empty containers of Phenol, paint, paint thinners etc in his room and also the store room of the building.
He said that he did this because the five other buildings in the area which had come up later over the years was drawing water from the same Thromde pipe and so water was not enough. He told the RBP that by poisoning the water supply he hoped that the buildings would draw water from other sources.
On further questioning and assurance given by the RBP that he should take his last chance to share all information before heading to court Sangay Dorji gave a second statement where he said that he did all this water tampering and poisoning under the guidance and instructions of his master Pema Jungney.
Later when Pema Jungney came to the police station to answer a few questions and give a statement the RBP allowed the two to talk and face each other.
After being confronted by Pema Jungney, Sangay Dorji changed his statement to the police again saying that it was only he who is responsible and in the process the RBP ended up with differing statements from Sangay Dorji with the final one being Sangay Dorji taking all the blame.
Pema Jungney in an earlier interview to The Bhutanese denied all involvement or knowledge of the water poisonings by his man servant and said it had happened without his knowledge.
The RBP said that it has not recommended a felony of the first degree which is a minimum of 15 years and maximum of life imprisonment as there had been no recorded death.
