Nepali Congress (NC) leader and former home minister Bal Krishna Khand has been arrested after evidence of him playing the main role in recent times in the fake Bhutanese refugees scam, according to a top Nepal Police source.
“He has been arrested on the basis of evidence that the scam was last moved forward and even exchange of money took place under his leadership,” the source has stated.
The source has revealed that the decision to arrest Khand was taken on the basis of fake reports and documents made when he was home minister, evidence of exchange of money by him and those close to him, and the latest statement of the arrested then home secretary Tek Narayan Pandey that he worked under Khand’s instruction.
The police have been questioning Pandey in different stages, and he has accepted involvement of Khand before the police leadership in the latest statement.
Pandey has already given the statement even to the District Attorney’s Office after initially refusing to plead guilty. He relented after the police showed evidence of him taking money. He took some time to decide about whether to take all the blame for the scam himself, or accuse Khand of instructing him to that regard.
The police had confiscated Pandey’s phone while arresting him which helped move the investigation forward in a big way. The police had to send the phone to a forensic laboratory to retrieve the deleted materials which showed that Pandey had repeatedly contacted Keshav Dulal, Sanu Bhandari and others who initiated the scam.
The retrieved materials provided evidence that Pandey and others took tens of millions in the scam. Khand’s personal secretary Narendra KC was also found to have played a role in exchange of the money. KC has also been arrested together with Khand from the latter’s residence Wednesday morning.
Principal of Sharada Secondary School of Chitwan, KC had repeatedly become Khand’s personal assistant when he became minister in the past proving a longstanding connection between them.
“A big role of Khand has been seen in this incident. He is found to have received a lot of money while at the Home Ministry,” the source has stressed. “We have enough evidence against both of them.”
The police have said that fake reports and documents were prepared at the ministry when Khand was home minister. The police have acquired both genuine and fake reports and compared the two to find evidence.
The victims in their initial complaint had also submitted an audio recording of 30 minutes. A one-minute and three second-segment of that audio recording of conversation purportedly between a member of the racket involved in the scam and a victim claims that Arzu Rana Deuba and Manju Khand—both Nepali Congress (NC) lawmakers and wives of NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba and NC leader and former home minister Bal Krishna Khand respectively—were also paid by the racket.
“Rs 25 million has been submitted to Arzu. Rs 60 million has been submitted to Bal Krishna Khand, Manju Devi received at home. They have home in Hanumanthan, she received that there,” the victim has claimed in the recording.
The police also took statement of one the then chief district officer (CDO) in course of investigation. Khand and Pandey had put pressure on the then CDO for many illegal works related to the scam, according to the then CDO’s statement, and got the officer transferred when the officer did not oblige.
The Home Ministry had formed a task force under the then Joint Secretary Bal Krishna Panthi through a minister-level decision on June 13, 2019 to study the state of Bhutanese refugees in Nepal and provide recommendation/consultation for third-country resettlement when KP Sharma Oli was the prime minister (PM). Current CPN-UML Vice-chairman Ram Bahadur Thapa was the home minister while current Chief of the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) Prem Bahadur Rai was the home secretary.
The report prepared by the Panthi-led task force identified 429 authenticated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as Bhutanese refugees. The report has yet to be made public but the racket acquired that report with connivance of top politicians.
The racket added names of fake refugees after acquiring the report. They started to look for fake refugees who could pay money in Jhapa, Morang, Dang and other districts saying they have connection at the Home Ministry. They asked the victims to lodge applications and got their names inserted in the report as Bhutanese refugees after collecting tens of millions from them.
The police had written to the Home Ministry for the original report which showed that the report had later been tampered with, according to the source.
The arrest of Khand and his personal assistant KC has taken the number of arrests in the case to 12. Ram Sharan KC and Govinda Chaudhary, who have been accused of acting as middlemen in the scam, were arrested on Tuesday.
Police have already arrested former home secretary Tek Narayan Pandey, former home minister Ram Bahadur Thapa’s security advisor Indrajit Rai, CPN-UML Secretary and lawmaker Top Bahadur Rayamajhi’s son Sandeep, Keshav Dulal, Sanu Bhandari, Sagar Rai, Sandesh Sharma, and Tanka Kumar Gurung.
Victims of the scam had first filed complaints at the Kathmandu Valley Crime Investigation Office on June 1, 2022. Current IGO Basanta Bahadur Kunwar was the office chief then. But he was transferred following promotion after initiating investigation. The investigation was stopped for a long time after his transfer. But it was again resumed in recent months. Keshav Dulal, Sanu Bhandari and Tanka Kumar Gurung were arrested on March 26 this year.
Sanu Bhandari took names of all the persons who took money from him during questioning by the police. There was pressure to stop his statement after he started to take names but Bhandari remained adamant that his statement be kept as it was. Rayamajhi, Khand and others were dragged in after that.
The police started to collect evidence after that and consequently started to make arrests of senior officials including the then advisor to former home minister Ram Bahadur Thapa, Indrajit Rai, and Tek Narayan Pandey who was appointed home secretary after Khand replaced Thapa as home minister following ouster of the Oli government and formation of the Sher Bahadur Deuba government.
