The District Government Attorney Office, Kathmandu has decided to put the complaint on alleged abduction of Socialist Party lawmaker Dr Surendra Yadav on hold.
Chief of the office Hari Regmi told Setopati that the office has decided to put the complaint on hold in a way it can be revived when the police brings additional evidence. "The case need not be moved forward looking at the evidence the police have presented until now. We have decided to put it on hold in a way it will be revived if additional evidence is gathered later," Regmi stated.
He revealed that the police also recommended to put the complaint on hold in its report. "We also did not deem that an abduction case should be moved forward after analyzing the evidence."
The police had presented interviews given by Yadav to different media houses, and other audio-video recordings, and field report of Yadav's house and the hotel he stayed in as evidence.
Regmi said statements of Socialist Party leader Uma Shankar Argaiya, Yadav's brother-in-law and bodyguard who had accompanied Yadav were also presented. He claimed that they called it a political issue and not abduction.
"I did not want to come and wanted to stay at home. I had to come against my wish on their insistence," Regmi quoted Yadav as saying in his statement with the police. He said the decision to keep the complaint on hold was taken taking all of that into consideration.
The office had registered the abduction complaint against former Nepal Police IGP Sarbendra Khanal, and CPN lawmakers Mahesh Basnet and Kisan Shrestha on May 4.
The office earlier had refused to register the complaint seeking some time for study. Leaders of Janata Samjwadi Party had reached the office at Babarmahal on April 28 after the Metropolitan Police Range Kathmandu refused to register the abduction case two days earlier.
Yadav had then registered a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on April 30 after both the police and District Government Attorney Office refused to register the abduction complaint and registered an application demanding the NHRC instruct the government to take action in the abduction case.
Khanal, Basnet and Shrestha had brought Yadav from Mahottari to Kathmandu on April 22 in what was accused by the party as abduction. Ex-IGP Khanal and former minister Basnet have claimed that they only facilitated arrival of Yadav to Kathmandu as per his plan.
Yadav was brought to Kathmandu at three Thursday morning and kept at Kathmandu Marriott Hotel with an intention to split Socialist Party with seven lawmakers. But Yadav absconded a few hours later to foil the plan seemingly engineered by Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli who had brought an ordinance on Monday making it easier to split political parties.
The rebel faction could not muster the necessary 40 percent in parliamentary party after Yadav absconded.
