Police have arrested a senior citizen for raping a minor in Bara.

Seventy-three-year-old Sitaram Poudel of Nijgadh Municipality was held from his home last night for sexually abusing a 13-year-old girl of the same place.

A joint team from Temporary Police Post, Ratanpuri, and Area Police Office, Nijgadh, arrested the septuagenarian, who is said to have kept illicit relationship with many women in the village. Detained by the locals and the kin of the victim after the girl revealed that she was raped, Poudel was handed over to the police.

“It seems he had been exploiting the minor for long by sweet-talking her; as learnt now, he had last abused her last week when the latter had gone to collect fodder in a nearby field,” said Nijgadh Area Police Office Inspector Bikas Thapaliya.

“We’ve have conducted medical check up of both the old man and the victim; investigation into the man was launched after we received a week’s remand from the district court for investigation,” said the inspector.

The rape had surfaced after the girl complained of pain in her lower abdomen upon being inquired by her kin. She had told them about the abuse she had been putting up with.