KATHMANDU, AUGUST 9
Kathmandu District Court today allowed police to keep all 20 accused arrestees of the Lalita Niwas land grab scam in judicial custody for seven more days. Acting on request of the Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police, the court granted extension of custody for further investigation.
This is the fifth time the court has extended custody of the accused. All the accused are charged with multiple offences, including organised crime, which allows police to seek judicial remand for up to 60 days.
So far, former secretary and commissioner of Election Commission Sudhir Kumar Shah, owner of Bhatbhateni Supermarket Min Bahadur Gurung and mostly other government employees, including some of the land mafia who masterminded the transfer and some fake Mohi (informal tenants), have been arrested in the scam.
Police have acquired arrest warrant from the court for 400 suspicious people in the case. The KDC also granted permission to arrest four former ministers who were responsible for tabling proposals at the prime minister's Cabinet to transfer government-owned land of Lalita Niwas to private ownership.
This is the second time the CIB has probed into the scam. The CIB had to reinvestigate the case after the Office of Kathmandu District Attorney on 2 January 2022 refused to file case against 400 accused citing that police investigation and gathered evidences in the case were not enough.
Police concluded that middlemen, land mafia, political leaders and government employees had worked in collusion in four different levels to transfer over 143 ropani land of Lalita Niwas (the complex that houses the prime minister's residence, Nepal Rastra Bank's central office and houses of VIPs) to private ownership.
A version of this article appears in the print on August 10, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
