On October 30, 2021 (Kartik 13, 2078 BS), Kantipur daily published a front-page story about one Uma Shankar Rayabhar. The story, which had been written by Tufan Neupane, a journalist covering the judiciary beat for Kantipur, featured Uma Shankar, a local of Parwanipur Rural Municipality in Bara district, whose identity had been used as a scapegoat for a tax fraud scam that amounted to over Rs 280 million. Uma Shankar was taken into police custody on March 3, 2021 (Falgun 19, 2077 BS) and had already spent almost eight months in Nakhu jail when Neupane’s first piece was published.
Since then, Neupane has written a series of articles documenting Uma Shankar’s false imprisonment and the judicial oversights that led to it. Neupane’s continued reporting on the case and how the judicial system in Nepal is often rigged against the poor led to much public awareness about the case, which was then picked up pro bono by lawyer Radhika Khatiwada.
With Khatiwada’s legal assistance and Neupane’s documentation, Uma Shankar was finally released from prison on January 28, 2022 (Magh 14, 2078 BS) on bail of Rs 25,000 by the Supreme Court, as opposed to the initial bail of Rs 7.5 million. Read the full article on the Record.
