August 12, 2007 - Samdrupcholing, Samdrup Jongkhar: A former Drimpon was killed when his neighbor, a lay monk, stabbed him with a dagger.

Dorji, 64, stabbed his neighbor, Karma, in front of the victim’s family in Thangchung Gonpa in a fit of anger during a minor quarrel on August 7 at around 7 pm.

Immediately after the incident, both Karma and Dorji (who was also injured in the fight) were rushed to the Samdrupcholing basic health unit. Karma died on the way to the Deothang military hospital, early morning. Dorji was later taken to Samdrup Jongkhar police station.

The victim, Karma, 47, on returning from a meeting that evening found his son, Tandin Gyamtsho, 19, being bullied by Dorji. The apple of discord was Dorji’s son Tshering who had been missing.

“We heard that his son was in Samdrup Jongkhar,” said Tandin Gyamtsho, “and I was telling him the same. But he started nagging me for no reason.”

Meanwhile, Karma appeared and the culprit picked up a quarrel with him.  All of a sudden Dorji took out his dagger and stabbed Karma in front of the victim’s son, wife, mother and two others who had come to the family’s shop.

“We were shocked because we never expected Dorji to carry a dagger and when we discovered that my father was hurt, it was too late and the injury was very serious,” said his son, Tandin Gyamtsho.

Dorji was also hurt when Tandin Gyamtsho tried to push him to defend his father.

Both the families are from Trashigang; Dorji from Galing and Karma from Radi. Karma retired as a Drimpon from Samtse and had resettled in Samdrupcholing six months back. The neighbors told BT that he was a very jolly person and had maintained a good relation with them.

On the other hand, people BT spoke to said that Dorji was a peculiar character and hardly mingled with the villagers. He came to Samdrupcholing in 1992 after his retirement from the Royal Bhutan Army. Since then he has been working as a lay monk. He has no kids of his own except for an adopted son who was a monk for four years.

“Both the father and the son were strange characters,” said Wangpo, a resident. “They were both recluse; most of the villagers accused them of the robberies in the village.”

BT found that the relation between the two families was normal until Dorji started acting rude after the disappearance of his son 19 days before, and had been acting strange after his adopted son was accused of stealing money from the village lhakhang and nine other houses. 

The victim’s family told BT that four days before the incident Dorji had visited their shop and acted unusually rude and strange.

“It seemed as if he was not happy with our progress since within six months my father had made profit with the two new shops,” said the victim’s son. “That day he had sworn that he would make us suffer within three days and I feel that the murder was, perhaps, planned.”