KAVRE: District Police Office, Kavre has filed a case under Black Marketing Act against five persons for selling relief food items allocated for tremor victims of Kavre, at District Court, Kavre.

DSP Raj Kumar KC of District Police Office, Kavre said that police have filed cases against Surya Bahadur Lama, 55, of Cahubas VDC, Guna Prasad Chaulagain, 56, and Krishna Prasad Chaulagain of Gothapani VDC, Thuli Lama of Sanubangthali VDC and Kanchhi Lama of Dhuseni Shivalaya VDC.

He said that police had arrested them on Tuesday and started investigating their involvement in selling relief food items such as beaten rice, rice and salt, among others. It has been said that the accused were cadres of Nepali Congress.

According to the law of the land, persons involved in such acts could be sent to jail for five years or fined an amount equal to the embezzled amount or the both, if the persons were found to be guilty.

It is said that Surya Bahadur Lama’s son Ashok of Chaubasa VDC had taken 200 sacks rice, 100 sacks beaten rice and five sacks salt to Gothapani VDC after informing the district disaster rescue committee, in a truck on May 6. But, Lama had kept 47 sacks of rice and 20 sacks beaten rice in the grocery shops run by Krishna Prasad Chaulagain and Guna Prasad Chaulagain at Gothapani VDC.

Police had carried out the investigation after being informed that relief items had been sold rather than distributed to the quake victims in different VDCs. DSP KC said that Krishna Prasad and Guna Prasad had sold two sacks of rice, which was kept by Ashok, to locals at Rs 1,200 each.

Meanwhile, a team from the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA), including deputy legal attorney Ram Kumar Sharma, Tilak Karki and

SSP Kedar Rijal were briefed about the ongoing relief distribution to the

victims in Kavre and about the budget by CDO Sudarshan Dhakal and LDO Chiranjibi Timsina.