Kathmandu, July 27

Employees of Lalitpur Metropolitan City, along with members of the Local Level Employees’ Union, halted all official works of the local government today, protesting the recent arrest of one of the ward chairs in the metropolis.

The anti-human trafficking bureau of Nepal Police had recently arrested Shree Gopal Maharjan for allegedly producing fake relationship verification certificate. Police suspected that the same certificate was used for illegal kidney transplantation at Bharatpur-based College of Medical Sciences Teaching Hospital on 10 June 2019.

Maharjan was arrested on July 12 along with 11 other accused accomplices, including three doctors and two police personnel.

Following his arrest, work at all wards of the local government was halted for the day.

The employees, issuing a press release, stated that police had unnecessarily pulled the ward chair into the scheme. They also urged the police to direct the investigations to the right track to find out real culprits in the case.

Chiri Babu Maharjan, mayor of LMC, said that although he did not favour employees’ act of halting work, the police action cannot be justified as the ward chair seems to have been tricked into doing so.

“The first original copy of the relationship certificate was genuine, but it looks like fraudsters had cheated them while acquiring the second copy of the certificate,” Maharjan said.

He also said that Maharjan could be charged for negligence, but his role in the crime could not be justified.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on July 28, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.