Kathmandu, March 16

Minister for Home Affairs Ram Bahadur Thapa has pledged to initiate stringent action against those involved in brutal attack on Ghodaghodi Municipality Mayor Mamata Prasad Chaudhary.

Chaudhary is undergoing treatment at TU Teaching Hospital, Maharajgunj. An armed gang of assailants had attacked the mayor in his own house at Sukhkhad Bazaar of Kailali on March 12. He has sustained bullet and khukuri injuries to his legs, head and waist.

Minister Thapa visited the hospital and took stock of Chaudhary’s health condition and urged the doctors attending him not to compromise on his treatment. “We have already booked some of the assailants and a manhunt is under way to nab others,” Thapa said. Police have arrested four cadres of Netra Bikram Chand-led Communist Party of Nepal for allegedly attacking the mayor. They include Kamal Chhetri, 40, of Ghodaghodi-1; Bharat Shah, 36, of Ghodaghodi-9; Purna Prasad Khanal of Dhangadhi-8; and Hridaya Raj Bogati of Tikapur-1. Nine of the 13 suspects are absconding.

Meanwhile, Minister Thapa inspected Nepal Police Hospital in Maharajgunj and directed them to make health service delivery more effective. Dr Dinesh Chandra Pokhrel, medical director of the hospital, appraised the minister of the activities and service delivery of the health facility.

The hospital was opened to the general public for preventive and curative health services in November last year as per a decision of the Council of Ministers. Established in 1984, the hospital was solely dedicated to providing free health services to in-service police employees, their families, and retired personnel and their spouses until then.

OPD service remains open for the general public from 1:30 to 3:00pm daily. The 311-bed hospital has set aside 20 beds for general ward and 30 beds for post-operative wards.