Kathmandu, April 15

Basnet, Bhatta holding fort.

With the chiefs of Armed Police Force and National Intelligence Department retiring today the government has appointed APF Additional Inspector General Sanat Kumar Basnet as officiating Inspector General and Ashok Dev Bhatta as the officiating chief Investigation Director of NID. APF IGP Basudev Oli, along with 20 other officers, and Chief Investigation Director Dhan Singh Karki, along with 19 officers, got retirement today, a highly-placed Home Ministry source told The Himalayan Times. The police officers, whose service term exceeded 30 years were pensioned off. They include AIG Narayan Pandey and DIG Madhav Thapa of APF. According to the source, tenure of 39 junior officers of APF and 150 officers of NID expired today as per the new amendment in the laws governing the two security agencies. The 13th amendment to the Special Service Regulation 2044 BS of National Investigation Department was made on April 1 and the fifth amendment to Armed Police Force Act 2057 BS was published on April 13. The amendments were made to maintain uniformity in the provisions of retirement in all the three security bodies under the Home Ministry. Now all the three bodies will have three criteria in stead for the retirement policy of security officers — the age limit, tenure and the years of service. Nepal Police has already been practicing all three criteria for retirement.The maximum years of service for the security personnel and officers of both NID and APF has been fixed at 30 years as is the practice in Nepal Police.