KATHMANDU- Police arrested five senior members of an underground armed group—the Communist Party of Nepal (Rebel) Maoist—from Baluwatar in the Capital and Jagati in Bhaktapur on Wednesday. Police said the men were holding a meeting and making plans to bomb several places in the Kathmandu Valley when they raided the hideouts and arrested them. Acting on a tip-off, a special squad from the Metropolitan Police Crime Division (MPCD) raided the hideouts from where they also seized three pistols, some explosives and paraphernalia containing plans to carry out the bombings.
The arrestees have been identified as Chairman of the outfit Lalit Limbu (Girwan), Vice Chairman Bhim Ojha (Mukti), Treasurer Barun Shrestha (Omkar), Secretary Netra Prasad Dahal (Rijwan) and Military Commander Ajay Thapa Magar (Akhanda).
“Preliminary investigation has revealed that Magar was a former Kathmandu District Committee member of the UCPN (Maoist), while Ojha was a former cadre of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party,” Chief of the MPCD Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Hemanta Malla said.
However, police sources said the underground organisation is not a splinter group of the UCPN (Maoist) as the name suggests. The outfit was formed in mid-May 2010, police said.
Police said the men were preparing to collect around 50 weapons, enroll around 1,000 cadres in the outfit (giving priority to the Madhesi community) and plant bombs in 15 different places of the Valley by the end of April.
Police also said the men were planning to import two AK-47 rifles within two months. “They were planning to cause destruction and spread terror by bombing various places in the Valley to prove their existence, so that it would be easier for them to collect funds,” SSP Madhav Nepal at the Metropolitan Police Range said.
No comments:
Post a Comment