The then home secretary Umesh Mainali has claimed that he knew about the bomb explosion near the house of Nepali Congress (NC) lawmaker Mohammad Aftab Alam over 11 years ago only a few days after the incident.
"It is hard to recollect all such incidents that happened then. There were explosions at many places. The National Human Rights Commission had summoned me two-three days after the incident and said a team would be sent to investigate the incident. I said that we would cooperate if the team were to go," Mainali, who now chairs the Public Service Commission, told Setopati on Monday. "I had told the commission even then that the police there would investigate the incident. You all know that the police investigated and sent it to the District Government Attorney's Office which decided to not move the case forward. And the attorney general endorsed that."
He added that he does not remember whether he discussed the incident with the then Nepal Police IGP Om Bikram Rana. "I don't remember whether I talked with IGP or not. You have to ask that with him. What I have to say is home secretary has no role in crime investigation. Police and government attorneys have. We ask them to investigate soon when we know. We had instructed even in that," Mainali argued. "What I remember is just that the National Human Rights Commission deployed a team under its member for investigation. We also cooperated in that and it could not find any evidence."
The then IGP Rana has expressed ignorance about the incident.
Speaking to Setopati Sunday evening, Rana said he was not briefed about that incident and knew about that while reading newspapers Sunday morning after he returned from pilgrimage.
Rana, who headed the Nepal Police from August 2006-August 2008, like Mainali claimed there were many explosions across the country in the election held after the then Maoists joined mainstream politics reasoning it was hard for him to follow every incident by himself.
"There was Constituent Assembly (CA) election at the time. Home minister, home secretary and myself were busy visiting all 75 districts and briefing about election. I, therefore, don't remember about this particular incident," he reminisced.
Background of the case
Two persons were killed and over a dozen injured in a bomb explosion at Pharhadawa of Rautahat on April 9, 2008 before the first Constituent Assembly (CA) election. Most of the injured persons were Indians and all of them suddenly disappeared a few days after the incident.
Families of two of the missing Nepali citizens complained with the police some time later claiming that the explosion occurred while making bombs to help Alam win the election and he burned 11 injured persons in the furnace of a nearby brick factory alive to cover up the incident.
Police sat on the complaint filed by Sheikh Ruksana Khatun and Shree Narayan Singh, and Alam won the CA election.
Police secretly investigated the case and found that Alam had hired Indians from across the border to make bombs to capture polling stations, and the villagers corroborated the claims of complainants.
Alam went to the Rautahat Police on June 23, 2008 after being summoned and the police prepared a case against Alam and his five cadres. But the case was never filed after the Office of the Attorney General instructed the District Attorney's Office to that regard on July 14, 2008.
Khatun and Singh moved the Supreme Court (SC) against the decision of District Attorney's Office and Alam, even as Alam became labor and transportation minister in the Madhav Kumar Nepal government in 2009.
A joint bench of the then SC justices Sushila Karki and Bharat Bahadur Karki hearing the petition filed by Khatun and Singh ordered arrest of the defendants and investigation but the order was not executed.
Khatun and Singh then complained with the Judgement Execution Directorate which again ordered Alam's arrest. But powerful Alam, who could even get officers he wanted deployed as Rautahat Police chief, was again not arrested.
Khatun was murdered in the meantime and other victims of the incident also could not speak after that.
The police are preparing the case of murdering 14 persons—including the two killed during the explosion, 11 injured during the explosion and later burnt alive, and Khatun—against Alam.
