KATHMANDU, JUN 24 -
Police on Saturday morning raided houses and hideouts of around 64 “gangsters” presumably involved in criminal activities in and outside the Kathmandu Valley.
Given their past crime profiles and suspicion of their possible involvement in unlawful activities of late, police raided houses of the “dons”, including Dipak Manange, Kumar Ghaite, Baghe Lama, Dawa Lama, Panche Lama, Dinesh Adhikari aka Chari, Tejendra Gurung and Sashi Adhikari.
An operation, coordinated by the Kathmandu Metropolitan Police Range (MPR), took place for a couple of hours beginning 4 am in the morning. However, according to police, the raids were not done with an intention to arrest the gangsters, but to check if they have connections with any illegal activity. “We had suspected alleged possession of illegal small arms with the dons,” said
MPR chief SSP Jay Bahadur Chand. However, out of the 64 persons searched by police, all except two came clean.
MPR Spokesman DSP Dhiraj Pratap Singh said two notorious “dons” put behind the bars after the raid are drug dealer Sudip Sthapit, 24 and Rabindra Deula aka Sipahi, 20, a convict in an attempted murder case some one and a half years ago. While Sthapit was arrested from Makhan Tole for possession of 1 gram brown sugar, Deula was netted from his Damai Tole-based rented room.
Meanwhile, a MPR official, requesting anonymity, said it was shocking to find nothing fishy at their houses. “They must have been informed about the raid prior to our operation,” he said. “Otherwise it is impossible for dons with tainted histories to come clean during a surprise raid.”
SSP Chand said the raid, which will be continued in the upcoming days too, is a part of the recent police operation focused on putting a brake on the rising criminal activities like hooliganism, abduction, extortion and murder in the Valley. The Saturday’s operation was carried out under the direction of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner’s Office (MPCO). Altogether 700 police officials were deployed to seal and search the gangsters’ abodes. Raids were carried out at several places, including Koteshwor, Balaju, Bouddha and Kalanki. “Our operation today targeted ‘A’ and ‘B’ grade dons living inside the Kathmandu Valley,” said DSP Singh.
According to him, police have a system of grading the gangsters based on their criminal profiles and penetration in the society. DSP Singh, however, said police have no exact data on the number of the graded gangsters operating in the Valley.
During the raid, an alleged notorious gangster, Ganesh Lama, who has had connections in criminal cases from sand smuggling to extortion and kidnapping, was left untouched. According to the MPR official, the reason behind this is Ganesh Lama’s “close relations” with Home Minister Bijay Kumar Gachhadar.
Also a central committee member of the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum-Loktantrik (MJF-L) led by Gachhadar, Lama was arrested on the charge of banking crime some nine months ago. However, after Gachhdar became the home minister, SSP Kedar Rijal, the then MPR chief who arrested Lama, was transferred from MPR.
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