Nepali Congress (NC) leader Shekhar Koirala has demanded a high-level committee to investigate gold smuggling.
Speaking in the NC parliamentary party meeting on Sunday Koirala, who lost the runoff for NC president to Sher Bahadur Deuba in the last general convention, has demanded so.
The Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) of Nepal Police is currently investigating the case.
"A Finance Ministry staffer working with the secretariat of Pushpa Kamal Dahal goes to become the director general of the Department of Revenue Investigation (DRI) a week earlier. And then gold is confiscated and let's look at the incidents after that," Koirala has pointed. "They ask 'why should CIB be asked to investigate', and claim that DRI is competent for investigation. A high-level committee is, therefore, needed to investigate gold smuggling case."
He has also asked whether the government has written to the country from which the gold was smuggled to understand about smuggling or not. He has pointed that the main opposition CPN-UML is also demanding a high-level committee to investigate the case and added that the party should also think about that.
UML has been demanding a high-level probe committee stressing that the CIB cannot investigate the Home Minister or others in the government who may have been involved in gold smuggling.
Koirala has also slammed Prime Minister Dahal for soliciting votes for CPN (Maoist Center) with promise of provinces on the basis of ethnicities while addressing a program held to mark the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples on August 9. "He does not have right to speak in that manner in capacity of a PM."
He has also protested appointment of controversial Lharkyal Lama as vice-chair of the Lumbini Development Trust by the government. "NC will not carry burden of such decisions."
