Police recover Shrestha's body
In yet another turn to the murder case of Ram Hari Shrestha which has hogged the national headlines for must of the last ten days, police on Sunday said they have recovered a body which they suspect is that of the deceased businessman from Koteshwor.
Police said they are preparing to send the body for DNA testing to verify whether the dead body is that of Shrestha who was killed by Maoist affiliated People's Liberation Army (PLA) men after kidnapping from his house about three weeks ago. They had charged Shrestha of stealing Rs 1.7 million from the apartment he had rented to the Maoists.
After locals informed the police early today morning about a dead body found below the Jugedi Bridge at the Narayangadh-Mugling road section, the police had reached the site with Govinda Bahadur Batala, a PLA brigade commander charged of being involved in Shrestha's murder, in order to help them identify the body.
Although the body was found swollen beyond recognition due to the river water after it was brought up, Batala had identified the body to from the clothes, beard and physical attributes, police said.
However, Police Inspector Prakash Malla said they could only say it for sure whether the body is indeed of Shrestha after DNA tests.
Meanwhile, although Shrestha's family members have been asked to come to the site to identify the body, the Koteshwor Struggle Committee's Gyan Kumar Shrestha said that nobody would go there owing to security reasons. He also said that by saying that the body has been found the Maoists may have been trying to put down their protest.
Ram Hari's wife Ramila Shrestha is currently staging an indefinite fast-unto-death with her mother-in-law and three other women wearing white funeral Saris at Koteshwor Chowk demanding that the persons involved in the brutal killing of her husband be brought to justice. nepalnews.com ag May 25 08
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