Indrajit Rai, security advisor to the then home minister Ram Bahadur Thapa, was arrested on May 2 over involvement in the racket that swindled tens of millions from Nepali citizens promising to send them to America as Bhutanese refugees.
The Kathmandu District Court on Sunday granted the police permission to keep Rai in custody for seven more days for investigation.
Rai is accused of acting as a coordinator between the Home Ministry and agents of the fake Bhutanese refugees scam when he was security advisor to the then home minister Thapa.
Rai’s relations with Thapa go back a long way.
The Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed on November 21, 2006, and the then CPN (Maoist) entered mainstream politics after a decade-long armed struggle.
It was then that Major General Kumar Fudung and security expert Indrajit Rai joined the Maoists along with several professors, former administrators, former army generals and security experts.
Fudung was made lawmaker in the reinstated Parliament soon after retiring as major general of Nepal Army. There were 83 Maoist lawmakers in the reinstated Parliament.
The 2006 Jana Andolan had revived the dissolved House of Representatives. On November 7, 2006, the then seven parties and CPN (Maoist) reached an agreement. The Maoists became part of the interim legislature as per the agreement.
Fudung was elected lawmaker during that time, while there were talks that Rai would also be made lawmaker.
“The question of army integration was important after joining the peace process. We also had to make the party the best in governance and policy-making,” a Maoist Center leader says. “Not only Kumar Fudung and Indrajit Rai, Surya Bahadur Sen Oli and Rabindra Pratap Shah also became associated during the process of establishing the party in all areas.”
Indrajit, whose ancestral home is in Aamchowk Rural Municipality of Bhojpur, was in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh of India. He claims to have done his PhD from there.
According to a Maoist leader, Indrajit had come to Nepal from Bhopal as per the wish of the then royal family in the 1990s and started providing training at the Army Staff College. It shows that he had close relations with the then royal family.
However, when the Maoists joined mainstream politics after the 2006 Jana Andolan, Rai broke off his close ties with the royals and became associated with the Maoists through Ram Bahadur Thapa.
The Maoists had formed three commands – western, central and eastern – during the armed conflict. Thapa was in-charge of the eastern command.
Thapa was also known as the military strategist of CPN (Maoist) during that period.
Rai came in contact with Thapa as he was also a high-level Maoist leader of the eastern region, with Gopal Kirati and other leaders from the east acting as facilitators. Maoist leaders opine that he grew close to Thapa also because he was a military expert.
“Maoists had military knowledge; he came in contact with Thapa thinking he could have an influence on issues such as international practice, peace process and army integration. He took advantage of that,” a Maoist leader says.
Rai became a lawmaker through the proportional representation (PR) system in the first Constituent Assembly.
The then government had formed a special committee for army integration under the leadership of former lieutenant general Balananda Sharma. Rai played a managerial role on behalf of the party in the committee.
Unified CPN (Maoist) split in June 2012, with leaders including Mohan Baidya and Ram Bahadur Thapa forming CPN (Maoist).
Rai, who was advisor in UCPN (Maoist), sided with Thapa after the split. He was given the role of advisor in the new party too and continued to remain close to Thapa.
According to a leader who was in Thapa’s secretariat then, Rai was not really active in party activities and had a tendency to be close to the leadership. The leadership trusted him easily as Rai had given advice and suggestions on army integration, the leader says.
Thapa was appointed home minister on February 26, 2018, while Rai was appointed as the home minister’s security advisor only on June 29. The Home Ministry cannot appoint the security advisor on its own; the Cabinet has to take the decision. According to leaders who were then in Thapa’s secretariat, Rai was appointed as per the wish of the then prime minister KP Sharma Oli.
There was a ‘cold war’ between Rai and other members of Thapa’s secretariat during that period. There was no coordination as Rai’s focus was more on meetings with intermediaries than on the ministry’s works, according to the then secretariat members.
“There were talks that he had been appointed as per the prime minister’s wish. The present case was not discussed in the ministry. It must have been fixed outside,” an officer who was in the Home Ministry during that period says.
Less than a decade after joining the peace process, the Maoist party suffered splits. The Netra Bikram Chand-led group broke away from the Mohan Baidya group in 2014. Thapa’s group returned to UCPN (Maoist) in 2016.
When CPN was formed on May 17, 2018, Rai, who had remained with Thapa all along, was not in the party’s executive committee and was given the role of advisor.
CPN split after the then prime minister Oli dissolved the House of Representatives on December 20, 2020.
Standing committee members Dev Gurung, Pampha Bhusal and other leaders considered close to Thapa joined the faction led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Madhav Kumar Nepal.
However, Thapa was still undecided.
During a central committee meeting called by the Dahal-Nepal faction, Pampha Bhusal had said that Thapa would also not remain with Oli.
There were 27 central members from Thapa’s group then.
“All of us were in favor of not supporting the Parliament dissolution,” a central member who supported Thapa then says. “Apart from Dawa Thapa who represented Sindhupalchowk, others were not in favor of remaining with Oli.”
Thapa was home minister then, and Rai used to be part of nearly every meeting as his advisor.
“We used to hold meetings at the minister’s quarters in Pulchowk every day. Rai was the only one in the meetings who said that we should remain with Oli,” another leader from the Thapa group says, adding that Thapa remained in UML on Rai’s insistence.
Thapa managed to keep only Dawa and Manoj Thapa among the 27 central members in UML, according to the leader.
Rai is currently in police custody on the charge of swindling millions of rupees from Nepalis with the promise of sending them to America as Bhutanese refugees. Victims have said that Rai and his son Niraj took Rs 55 million between June 2019 and March 2020. Others arrested in the case have corroborated it in their statements. Rai’s son Niraj is absconding.
Rai is a member of the UML advisory committee. However, the party has not suspended him.
The UML secretariat meeting is taking place on Tuesday while the central committee’s fifth meeting is also set to take place in Kathmandu from May 11 to May 13. Deputy chief of UML’s publicity department Bishnu Rijal said that the case will be discussed in the meetings.
“Police investigation in the case is underway. There is no conclusion yet. Our secretariat and central committee meetings are also taking place. We will discuss there and take a decision,” Rijal said.
