By The Straits Times | Created at 2026-09-08 14:46:19 | Updated at 2026-09-08 16:01:51
1 hour ago
Three Nepalese nationals were arrested on Sept 8 in connection with the killing of a Nepalese vocational school student who was found dead in August in a river in the Tenjin district of the south-western Japanese city of Fukuoka, police said.
The three – identified as Sanju Tamang, 28, a vocational school student in Fukuoka; Asumita Tamang, 25, who lives in Tosu, Saga prefecture; and Prabin Lama, 22, an international student residing in Tosu – are suspected of killing Laxmi Rajbanshi, 25.
Rajbanshi came to Japan around May 2023 on a student visa.
According to the police, Rajbanshi was hit on the head with a pot and strangled with a rope in her home in Fukuoka before falling from a balcony into the river, where she drowned, between 11.30pm on Aug 18 and 12.15am the following day.
Sanju was living with a person Rajbanshi was dating, the police said. Sanju is believed to have attacked Rajbanshi and caused her to fall from the third-floor balcony.
A passer-by spotted a body floating in the Naka River in the Tenjin area at around 5.45am on Aug 19. Rajbanshi was pulled from the river and pronounced dead at the scene. KYODO NEWS
