Cops under pressure to find Bibek Sharma

Kathmandu, September 20:

The Nepal Rastra Bank Workers’ Association today warned the Home Minister that the Association would disrupt all the bank’s services related with the home ministry and police department until the home ministry takes special efforts to find out the whereabouts of Bibek Sharma Luitel who was kidnapped from his house on September 9.

Basanta Raj Pandey chairman of the association said that the association took the decision so as to pressurise the authority concerned to take the issue seriously.

“We have informed the Home Minister about this through a letter of memorandum sent to him,” Pandey said. Bimala Kumari Luitel, mother of the kidnapped boy, is a member of the association.

At a function organised in capital today, relatives of the eight-year-old Bibek accused the police of tampering with the investigation meant to find out the whereabouts of Luitel even after the arrest of prima-facie mastermind and two accomplices.

“The two persons, who took the boy from the house, have been arrested on our tip-off. They have not only confessed the crime but have also disclosed for whom they worked,” Bimala Kumari Luitel, said.

“Even after the arrest of those involved, police is delaying and tampering with the investigation. We are smelling a rat in police action,” she said.

She accused police of protecting the criminals. “Those who have been arrested have confessed their crime in our presence. And, they have also disclosed where the boy possibly could be.

But, later on, when police interrogated them, they changed their statements,” she said.

She also disclosed that the Home Minister’s personal assistant Prem Bhattarai once asked the police not to arrest Petini Palten Lama, the prima-facie mastermind, when police first reached her house.

Meanwhile, Bibek Search Campaign has called a Valley bandh on September 22. “We may go for an indefinite bandh from September 24 if police do not take special effort to find the whereabouts of the boy till Saturday,” a press release issued from the Campaign said.