Inam Sapkota (left) and Kumar Ben
Kathmandu, Nov 14: At least three people linked to the secretariats of Prime Minister Balen Shah and Home Minister Sudan Gurung visited the police office while Inam Sapkota, who was arrested on money laundering charges, was in custody, a high-security source has confirmed.
According to the source, after Sapkota’s arrest, the visitors included Bishal Adhikari, coordinator of the Prime Minister’s Secretariat; James Karki, an adviser to the Home Minister; and Chirag Shrestha, who identifies himself as an information technology adviser to both the Prime Minister and the Home Minister.
Photographs of James and Chirag at the police office were also obtained, but it has remained unclear on which day and at what time they visited, whom they met and what they discussed.
Bishal Adhikari, who serves as the government affairs and planning coordination coordinator at the Prime Minister’s Secretariat, went directly to the police office’s interrogation room and spoke with the officers investigating Inam.
A video of the conversation, which lasts approximately two and a half minutes, has also been recovered.
The video, recorded at around 6:30 pm on October 2 (Ashoj 16), shows Bishal Adhikari and police officer Raju Adhikari seated across a table, talking.
During the conversation, the police officer can be heard saying, “We hope the mobile phone will arrive today.” This confirms that the mobile phone seized after Sapkota’s arrest was not at the police office at the time.
On November 3, it was reported that Kumar Ben, the Prime Minister’s chief adviser, had kept two mobile phones seized from Inam Sapkota at his residence for two days before they were sent for forensic examination. According to new evidence, the forensic examination has now established the location history of those mobile phones.
People’s News Monitoring Service
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