Police produce Kamal Thapa at parliamentary probe committee
Former Home Minister Kamal Thapa was taken under control by the police and taken to the parliamentary committee that is investigating into the Belbari and Nagarkot killings on Saturday.
A police van drove Thapa, a powerful figure in the erstwhile royal cabinet, to the probe committee’s office in Singh Durbar for interrogation over the killings of civilians by security personnel in Morang’s Belbari and Nagarkot of Bhaktapur district months earlier.
A police team from Kamalpokhari Ward Police handed him an arrest warrant at around 3:15 pm after he insisted not to appear before the probe committee, which is headed by MP Pari Thapa, even after three summon orders.
The former Home Minister had informed the Home Ministry that he would not present himself at the committee. On Friday, the committee ordered the Home Ministry to present Thapa for interrogation at 2:00pm today.
Upon being taken at the committee’s office, Thapa reportedly said he didn’t know why he was arrested. Committee members were still questioning him about the two incidents until 4:30 pm.
On the night of December 14, 2005, 12 people were killed and 21 others injured when an inebriated army man, Bashudev Thapa, who, after a minor dispute, sprayed bullets on a crowd of locals who were celebrating a local fair at the Kalika Devi temple at Chihandanda of Nagarkot. Likewise, seven civilians were shot dead by army men when locals were staging demonstration in front of the army barrack in Belbari, Morang district, in April 2006.
The parliamentary committee has recommended the government to provide Rs 1 million to each of the families of people who died in the two incidents and Rs 0.6 million has been recommended for people sustaining lifelong disability and Rs 75 thousand and 25 thousand to those with serious and normal injury respectively. nepalnews.com mk Jan 13 07
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