A rare example of human honesty, Anuja Baniya, who returned a bag containing Rs 9.1 million cash and a diamond necklace, was thrilled when President Dr Ram Baran Yadav made a personal telephone call to her on Wednesday.  

“Anuja, I am Ram Baran Yadav. I read the news report on Wednesday about your honesty. My hearty congratulations to you on behalf of the Nepali people for your great deed. Your honesty is praiseworthy,” the president’s personal secretary Lalit Bahadur Basnet

quoted Dr Yadav as saying. The president made a telephone call at around 6:30 pm.

Baniya, a resident of Jhulke of Bhojpur district, found an unclaimed bag on a bus while she was travelling to Dharan on April 9. She found the owner’s telephone number among the documents inside the bag and informed the owner of the bag, Purushottam Poudel of Kathamandu, that she had the bag with her. Poudel got back his lost bag on April 12.

President Dr Yadav asked Baniya to convey his congratulations to her parents for having such an honest daughter.

He urged the 22-year-old girl to meet him whenever she visits Kathmandu. According to the Office of President, this is the first telephone call of this kind made by a president to an ordinary citizen.

Talking to the president, Anuja said she did not think that it was so much of a hoopla that she returned the cash and valuables. “I have returned cash and valuables in the

past as well. But the amounts were as big in the past,” Baniya told the Post. She said it was her duty and responsibility to return any lost belongings to the rightful owner.

Following the news of her honesty, Baniya received scores of telephone calls. She is now in Itahari with her sister and brother-in-law.

Sixty-five-year-old Poudel, who was heading to his daughter’s house at Dharan-9, absentmindedly left the bag when he got off the vehicle. Poudel said he had no hope of finding the bag and returned to the Capital even without informing the police. Upon receiving the money, he thankfully offered Baniya Rs. 200,000 cash and the diamond necklace but she declined