Nepal, Jan. 10 -- Last year in June, the locals of Putha Uttarganga Rural Municipality, Rukum East, held the Bhume festival involving shamanistic rituals practised by the indigenous population. It is considered a major festival in Rukum and is celebrated around mid-July, mid-January and during Buddha Purnima which falls in April.

Festivals usually are joyous occasions, but for a 17-year-old girl, a grade 12 student, the last Bhume festival left her scarred for life. A resident of ward 1 of Putha Uttarganga Rural Municipality, living in a rented apartment in Bachigaun in ward 10 of the same rural municipality, was brutally assaulted by four men in public under the pretext of practising the age-old tradition of 'Tani Bibaha', which can be ...