The Kathmandu District Court has extended the custody of nine people including Lila Ballabh Adhikari, a member of the Koshi Provincial Assembly from CPN-UML who was arrested on human trafficking charges, by five days.
A bench of Judge Gayatri Prasad Regmi on Tuesday granted the police permission to keep the nine defendants in custody and investigate them for five more days, said the court’s information officer Melis Baskota.
The court had earlier remanded them to custody for seven days on November 12.
On October 27, four people including Lila Ballabh Adhikari, who was then minister for internal affairs and law of Koshi province, had left for Japan to participate in the week-long International Conference on Open Access to Culture 2024.
Japan’s immigration authorities had deported Adhikari and the other three -- Janak Rai, Dawa Sherpa, and Kanchan Devkota -- who had accompanied him.
The Immigration Department of Nepal had then sent them to the Kathmandu Valley Crime Investigation Office for investigation.
Later, three others -- Mahesh Pandey, Jugal Riial, and Bir Bahadur Sunuwar -- were also arrested and sent to District Police Range, Kathmandu, for investigation.
Adhikari had then organized a press conference and resigned as minister.
The District Police Range had initially opened investigation on document forgery. After Adhikari’s arrest, it also began investigation on human trafficking and smuggling.
On November 11, police arrested two more persons -- Goody Rai and Nabin Rai – over their alleged involvement in the incident. According to police, the two had helped make fake identity cards.
