From fashion ramp to Nepali jail

By BABURAM KHAREL

KATHMANDU, Oct 14 - She dreamt of walking on the ramp modelling designer dresses, travelling to different places around the world and working for big companies. But her dreams were shattered when police arrested her in the capital for possessing illegal drugs.

24-year-old Mayana Lalawati (not her ...

She was arrested with 750 grams of white heroine on May 5 from a courier office at New Baneshwor. She had gone there to courier some books, which she had brought from Delhi, to Spain. Apparently drugs were hidden inside the books.

"I did not know that drugs were concealed inside the books' covers," she claimed, tears rolling down her cheeks. "I came here for shopping and for a tour.

Lalawati has modelled dresses on the fashion ramps of Delhi. She says she is also an event organiser and president of a Delhi-based NGO. But now her life is completely ruined because of a friend's insistence that she take five books to Kathmandu overland and courier them to Spain, she said.

This was her third visit to the capital.

Indeed, spending life inside the jail is becoming tough for this young fashion model and also a part-time employee at IT giant IBM. With completion of her masters in Zoology, she had gone to the Indian capital city Delhi in pursuit of opportunities available in a big city.

But today she can only rue her fate and her uncertain future. "No words can describe the pain of being an inmate inside a jail. Nobody is available to extend support and sympathy to me here. I cannot even think about my earlier life outside," she said.

She feels that the drug incident has really destroyed everything -- her and her family's reputation. She has not even informed her parents about her incarceration in Nepal. "I have told them over phone that I am staying outside Delhi on some official work, and that I cannot meet them for some more months," she said.

Her brother, who is in Kathmandu to support her, is the only family member who knows her reality.

Under Nepal's strict anti-narcotic laws Lalawati's future is indeed uncertain. If convicted, she will be sentenced for 15 to 25 years of imprisonment, along with fines between Rs 500,000 to Rs 2.5 million, according to the police.

But she remains hopeful. "I am still hopeful that the court's verdict will be in my favour as I was framed," she claimed. But she refused to tell her friend's name because she does not want to 'betray' her friend and get her friend into trouble.

According to Superintendent of Police Hementa Malla of Narcotic Drugs Control Law Enforcement Unit (NDCLEU), Lalawati has said that one woman named Thanina in New Delhi had sent the drugs with her and a man named named Amar who was accompanying her. The books were to be sent to Spanish citizen Thoson Dehi.

SP Malla said the police have already submitted an investigation report against her to the court.

Contrary to her claims, police said that it was the third time she tried to deliver books through the courier service and she had run away last year after leaving behind the same quantity of drugs at the courier's.

"There is a very slim chance that the verdict will be in her favour as the evidence against her is strong," said Malla.

If the police are to be believed, it is not because of betrayal by her friend, like she is insisting, but her greed that has got her behind the bars.