By A Staff Reporter

Kathmandu, Oct. 15: The government has been bearing a cost of around Rs. 143 million annually to manage the foreign inmates imprisoned at different jails of the country. There are currently 1,195 foreign inmates in 32 of the 74 prisons across the districts.
Debarshi Sapkota, information officer and under-secretary at the Department of Prison Management (DoPM), told The Rising Nepal that for both the Nepali and foreign inmates, the government has been providing 700 grams of rice every day, and Rs. 60 as daily allowance.
Besides these, the inmates also get medical expenses, a set of bed sheets once in every two years, and climate-friendly clothes. In addition, the government has to manage daily cooking fuel for them, said Sapkota.
According to the updated records as of Mid-August of DoPM, there are currently 23,095 inmates in 74 prisons of 72 districts.
The districts of Bhaktapur, Dhanusha, and Bara have no prison.
Though there is no limit how much money is spent monthly for the inmates across the country, but, normally, the Department has been spending around Rs. 10,000 per month per inmate for their management, Sapkota said.
The largest number of foreign inmates are at the Kathmandu-based central jail in Jaganath Dewal. The prison has been housing 203 foreign inmates as of mid-August, 2019.
Among the total foreign inmates, the number of Indian nationals is the highest followed by Chinese ones. A few European and American inmates are also doing their time in different jails of Nepal, he said. Majority of the Indian

inmates were convicted under illegal drug trading, and a few in murder charges.
Some notorious inmates, including Charles Shobhraj, known as the ‘Bikini Killer,’ who is now 72-year old, has been kept at the Dillibazar-based jail for murdering over a dozen of women, including two women in Nepal. French national Shobhraj has been imprisoned for life since 2003.
In recent years, some European nationals have been convicted for paedophile cases. Under the same charge, recently, Kavre district court had sentenced Peter John Dalglish, 62, for nine years jail term on July 9. He was arrested in April, 2018. Some of the other foreign inmates are in jail under forgery charge, and illegal drug trading.
As per the rule, the foreign inmates, who committed crime and later proven guilty, had to face the jail term in Nepal under the Nepali legal system. After completing the jail-term, they should be deported to their respective nation with help of concerned nation’s diplomatic mission in Nepal.