Nepali Congress leader and former minister Mohammad Aftab Alam has died.
Alam had been undergoing treatment at KMC Hospital in Sinamangal for more than a month. He was 63.
According to the hospital’s administrative chief, Narayan Prasad Dahal, Alam died at 2:59 a.m. Saturday.
He had been admitted to the hospital before Dashain.
About 10-12 days after being taken to KMC Hospital, he was placed on a ventilator, Dahal said.
Alam was suffering from kidney disease and high blood pressure. After being released from Nakhkhu Prison on May 28, he suffered a stroke and was treated at Annapurna Neuro Hospital in Maitighar.
Alam, along with other individuals, had been accused of detonating a bomb on the eve of the first Constituent Assembly election in 2008 in Farhadwa in then Rajpur VDC-4, Rautahat, and burning some people alive in a brick kiln.
A bomb had exploded in the shed of Alam’s uncle, Sheikh Idris, at around 6:30 p.m. on April 9, 2008. Several people in the shed were believed to have been killed and nearly two dozen injured. Alam was accused of disposing of the bodies and injured by throwing them into the fire-pit of a nearby brick kiln.
Police investigation found that, under Alam’s direction, the dead and injured from the explosion were transported by tractor and burned in the kiln in an attempt to hide the incident.
Alam served as minister of state for labor in 1997 in the government led by Surya Bahadur Thapa.
He later became minister of state for forests in 1998 under Girija Prasad Koirala.
In 1999, he served as minister of state for local development under Krishna Prasad Bhattarai. He then served as minister for land reforms in the subsequent Girija Prasad Koirala government.
He was elected in the first Constituent Assembly election held in 2008.
After the fall of the government led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Alam became minister for labor and transport in the Madhav Kumar Nepal-led government.
He was elected a central member of the Nepali Congress in 2010.
