The racket that swindled tens of million with promise to send Nepali citizens to America as fake Bhutanese refugees knew all along that the victims would never be sent to America.
No country had agreed to accept the ‘left-behind’ refugees nor the government had initiated any process to that regard.
If any country were to agree to accept the Bhutanese refugees still in Nepal in the future, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) would have to authenticate them. Verification of Bhutanese refugees by the Home Ministry would not suffice for resettlement in a third country.
None of the persons swindled by the racket in connivance with senior politicians and bureaucrats were verified by the UNHCR.
The UNHCR office in Nepal has confirmed with Setopati that the program for resettlement of Bhutanese refugees has ended. Responding to Setopati’s queries about the status of Bhutanese refugees, the UNHCR has welcomed the investigation into this scam by the government.
“The group resettlement program of refugees from Bhutan in Nepal ended on 31 December, 2016 and will not resume again,” it has stated. “UNHCR has consistently communicated about the end of the resettlement program.”
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Sewa Lamsal has also said that the UNHCR should verify the Bhutanese refugees pointing that nobody gets the status of refugee without authentication by the UNHCR. “The Foreign Ministry’s responsibility is to only coordinate after the decision of Home Ministry in refugee affairs.”
The US Embassy in Nepal responding to Setopati’s queries has also expressed ignorance about any efforts or agreement to resettle Bhutanese refugees in America now.
The racket duped Nepali citizens by showing the genuine list of Bhutanese refugees prepared by the Home Ministry at first and the forged list later without verification by the UNHCR. They collected additional money from some of them calling them for training showing their names in the forged list.
Some of the victims have claimed that a few Home Ministry vehicles were used for transporting the victims for the ‘training programs’ during the lockdown enforced at the time of COVID-19 pandemic.
Let’s look at the back-ground of the scam.
The communal Bhutanese government in 1990 expelled Lhotshampas—Bhutanese people of Nepali descent—as part of the state-orchestrated ethnic cleansing. A large number of those expelled by the state and fleeing persecution entered Nepal from the east and started staying in the eastern districts including Jhapa and Morang.
Refugee camps were established in Beldangi, Goldhap, Khudunabari and Timai of Jhapa; and Pathri Sanishchare of Morang.
Nepal gradually started resettlement of Bhutanese refugees in western countries after failing to get them repatriated to Bhutan despite repeated rounds of dialogue with the Bhutanese government. A total of 113,307 Bhutanese refugees were resettled in America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Britain, Netherlands and other countries by 2019.
A few Bhutanese refugees still remained in Nepal despite the third-country resettlement program. Some of them wanted to get back to Bhutan and others wanted to live in Nepal. A total of 3,050 Bhutanese refugees stayed in Nepal after the third-country resettlement program, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The number may be around 6,600, according to the government, as identity card for refugees were not distributed after 2012.
The Home Ministry 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. 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 UNHCR as Bhutanese refugees. The police are now preparing to question Panthi after questions have been raised that a few fake refugees may have been included even in that list.
The report stated that it would be best for the government to take diplomatic initiative with the countries concerned to resettle them as earlier after concluding the issue of registration of refugees included in Schedules 7 and 9, who have applied claiming that they were not registered, as Bhutan had not repatriated even a single refugee and had not showed any inclination to repatriate them.
The racket has found to have added Nepali citizens by including sub-categories (a) and (b) in Schedule 9 of that report. The government has yet to formally make that report public.
Devendra Bhattarai has reported in Kantipur that a total of 875 fake refugees have been added in the schedule of the report in that manner.
The Kathmandu Valley Crime Investigation Office has claimed that a racket has been active since 2019 to swindle Nepali citizens by promising to send them to America as fake Bhutanese refugees.
Investigation has showed that the task force was formed on initiation of that racket and fake refugees were included in its report. Chairman of the then Mahankal Rural Municipality in Lalitpur Ganesh KC, with no known expertise about refugee affairs, was included in that task force as an expert. “Home minister had provided name of three persons to keep in the task force formed to resolve the refugee problem. Don’t know who Ganesh KC out of them was,” the then home secretary Rai has been quoted as saying in the Kantipur report.
The racket swindled over Rs 136.30 million from 81 persons, as per the different complaints filed with the police, at the rate of Rs 1.5-2 million per person. The number of complainants has increased to 106 after the scam was made public.
The police initiated investigation of the scam after victims Gajendra Budhathoki and Ram Kumar Regmi lodged complaint on June 1, 2022. Over Rs 230 million seems to have been swindled as per the complaints filed with the police until now.
The police have arrested 14 persons in the case until now. CPN-UML leader Top Bahadur Rayamajhi was arrested Sunday. Nepali Congress (NC) leader and former home minister Bal Krishna Khand and his personal assistant Narendra KC were arrested on May 10. Ram Sharan KC and Govinda Chaudhary, who have been accused of acting as middlemen in the scam, were arrested on May 9.
Police have also arrested former home secretary Tek Narayan Pandey, former home minister Ram Bahadur Thapa’s security advisor Indrajit Rai, Top Bahadur Rayamajhi’s son Sandeep, Keshav Dulal, Sanu Bhandari, Sagar Rai, Sandesh Sharma, Tanka Kumar Gurung and former NC lawmaker Ang Tawa Sherpa.
Arrest warrant has also been issued in the names of Top Bahadur Rayamajhi, Ram Bahadur Thapa’s son Prateek Thapa, Indrajit Rai’s son Niraj and others.
Keshav Dulal, Sanu Bhandari, Tanka Gurung, Sandesh Sharma and Sagar Rai are the main accused in the case.
The racket has been found to have used even the Home Ministry’s official logo to forge identity cards and travel documents for the fake refugees.
The Kathmandu Police had initially investigated the scam as a fraud case. It is now investigating it under organized crime. The police get 60 days for investigation of cases of organized crime while the quantum of punishment is also higher in cases of organized crime than that of fraud.
