The Kathmandu District Court has remanded Secretary at the Office of the Vice-president Tek Narayan Pandey to custody for three days in the fake Bhutanese refugees scam.
SP with the Kathmandu Police Range Sitaram Rijal told Setopati that the court remanded former home secretary Pandey to three days of custody for investigation of the scam. Pandey was arrested after he reached the Kathmandu Police on Wednesday after being summoned. He was home secretary from August 11, 2021 to September 18, 2022.
Pandey has been suspended from his post following his arrest.
Kamal Prasad Bhattarai, spokesperson for the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration, said that the process to suspend Pandey has already begun.
As per the Civil Service Act, a civil employee arrested and kept in custody for investigation automatically remains suspended for the duration of the investigation, Bhattarai said.
Similarly, the court has remanded advisor to the then home minister Ram Bahadur Thapa, Indrajit Rai, to four days of custody in the case.
Arrest warrant has already been issued in the name of son of CPN-UML Vice-chairman and former home minister Ram Bahadur Thapa, Prateek Thapa, and UML Secretary and former deputy prime minister Top Bahadur Rayamajhi Rayamajhi and his son Sandeep Rayamajhi for investigation in the scam.
Advisor to the then home minister Ram Bahadur Thapa, Indrajit Rai, was arrested on Tuesday over involvement in the racket that swindled tens of millions from Nepali citizens promising to send them to America as Bhutanese refugees. Arrest warrant has also been issued against Rai’s son Niraj Rai in the case but the son has yet to be arrested.
Rai, who was advisor to the then home minister Thapa in 2017, was arrested from Sunakothi, Lalitpur Tuesday morning.
Investigations have showed that Rai had connived with one Keshav Dulal and others to collect tens of millions from many persons promising to send them to America as Bhutanese refugees when Thapa was home minister.
“We will include facts about his involvement in the file. It is not time to reveal that,” Chief of Kathmandu Police Range SSP Dan Bahadur Karki told Setopati. “We have arrested him and moved investigations forward as he had to be arrested now.”
Rai had facilitated with the Home Ministry to create fake Bhutanese refugees, according to a police officer involved in investigation, and has been arrested after the police collected evidence establishing his involvement.
Keshav Dulal, Sanu Bhattarai, Tanka Kumar Gurung, Sandesh Sharma and Sagar Rai have already been arrested in the case.
Dulal would deploy Sagar Rai and others to collect details and money from the victims, and also coordinate with Thapa’s advisor Rai at the Home Ministry, the investigations have showed. Indrajit Rai has been arrested after the others arrested in the case took his name in their statement.
“We have been told that Rai also took money. We will also look at his bank accounts,” the officer added.
Rai allegedly took more than Rs 50 million in the scam. “He seems to have done all the necessary things inside the Home Ministry. He seems to have played a major role in arranging things inside the ministry.”
Another police source stated that Rai played a role when he was advisor to Thapa while others also played a role after that.
The Home Ministry had formed a task force under the then Joint Secretary Bal Krishna Panthi in 2018 to identify previously unrecorded Bhutanese refugees. The task force had submitted its report to the Home Ministry but it was not made public leading to suspicion that fake refugees were included in that report itself.
Kathmandu Police acquired that report from the Home Ministry on April for investigations. A source claimed that over 800 fake refugees were included in that report. Genuine refugees were included only in four schedules of the report while the remaining names were added later, according to the source.
The police are also planning to arrest others who facilitated the scam after Indrajit Rai.
The Kathmandu Valley Crime Division had first received complaint accusing Keshav Dulal and others of fraud by creating fake Bhutanese refugees. It arrested Dulal and sent the file to the Kathmandu Police for further investigations.
The police is investigating them under Fraud and Organized Crime.
