KATHMANDU, JULY 5
Kathmandu District Court has sentenced Samirman Basnet and Kale alias Amar Bahadur Rana, the masterminds behind the murder of Sharad Kumar Gauchan, then president of the Federation of Contractor's Association of Nepal, to life imprisonment.
KDC's Information Officer Deepak Kumar Dahal informed that a single bench of judge Keshav Raj Ghimire slapped the punishment today as recommended by the district attorney. Earlier on June 27, the duo, along with other offenders, were already proven guilty at the court. Today, the KDC announced the punishment.
The gang led by Basnet and Rana had killed Gauchan in Kharibot, Shantinagar, in Kathmandu on 9 October 2017 at around 3:00pm. Assailants on two motorbikes had obstructed the road, smashed the windshield with stones and then shot Gauchan inside the car in Kharibot. Although he was rushed to the hospital, he was pronounced dead by doctors upon arrival.
The court also sent Som Tamang alias Lopchan Lama, who was arrested for Gauchan's murder, to 15 years in prison. Similarly, Maya Sherchan was sentenced to 10 years in prison on the charge of providing guns to the assailants. Maya was later apprehended by police during the court's hearing. She was also slapped a fine of Rs 60,000 on the charge of holding illegal firearms.
Similarly, Dhanraj Yonghang, Shyam Bahadur Gumbi alias Gumbi, Roshan Budhathoki alias Kaledari and Rajiv Syangtan alias Rajiv Tamang have been sentenced to five years in jail.
Meanwhile, the charge against Basant Thebe and Manoj Budhamagar alias Manoj Pun have been scrapped as both of them died during the period as per Information officer Dahal.
The court has adjourned the charge against seven of the accused as they are still at large. The fate of those absconders shall be decided by the court yet again when police produce them before the court.
The absconding include Ganga Prasad Limbu, Ajay Thapa, Samikala Rai, Pravesh Naib, Suja Thaksu Baji, Sudhir Kumar Shah and Pradeep Kumar Jha.
The bench also acquitted seven people, including Prakash Budhathoki, Santosh Gurung, Shivji Mahato Kamkar, Surya Bahadur Baji, Rajkumar Shah, Mukesh Kumar Pandey and Shyam Gupta.
The Central Investigation Bureau had concluded that Basnet, an infamous gangster, had killed Gauchan out of anger as the latter failed to provide the money demanded by the former. Basnet claimed that Gauchan owed him more than Rs 20 million, which was given to Gauchan to operate business through another infamous gangster named Kumar Ghaite. However, the relations between Gauchan and Basnet got strained after Ghaite was shot in a police encounter on 20 August 2015. After Ghaite's death, Basnet, who was a leading members of Gaite's gang, not only asked the money back from Gauchan but also asked for two per cent commission from various road construction projects undertaken by Gauchan.
A version of this article appears in the print on July 6, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
