Three Dozen Army Men Suspended in Nepal

Nearly three dozen Nepal’s army men including Captain Rabindra Bikram Rana of the Bhairavnath Battalion have been suspended on Sunday for thrashing and torturing three policemen on duty in the capital on Saturday morning.

Reports said the Defense Ministry of Nepal has also directed to detain them for interrogation. The ministry has formed a four-member probe committee headed by joint secretary at the ministry Kashi Nath Sharma to probe into the incident.

A group of nearly two dozen soldiers led by Rana severely beat and tortured Police Inspector Ram Bahadur KC, Assistant Sub Inspector (ASI) Dharmendra Raya and driver Dil Bahadur Tamang after taking them forcibly to the battalion at Maharajgunj.

The incident took place at around 2 am on Saturday at Thamel following an argument between Captain Rana and a police team over the issue of a wrongly parked vehicle.

Captain Rana and his aides misbehaved with the police team when the police notified them that their vehicle was parked in the wrong way in the main road.

A friend of Rana was then taken under control by the police when he started punching the policemen and was taken to the Durbar Marg police station. Rana escaped arrest but returned to the police station at Durbarmarg with a group of armed soldiers, took police officers to the Battalion and tortured them.

Meanwhile, the Chief of Army Staff (CoAS) of Nepal’s Army General Pyar Jung Thapa on Sunday deferred summon of the high-level judicial commission formed to probe into the suppression and killing of people during the April people’s movement.

According to Dilliraman Acharya, the Defence Ministry informed the commission that Thapa would not attend the panel as he had to go to Pokhara for ‘some important work’. Thapa is learnt to have forwarded a letter explaining his inability to attend the commission today as he had to go to Pokhara. Acharya said the commission was yet to finalise another date for COAS Thapa.
The commission had summoned Thapa, his deputy Lt General Rukmangad Katuwal and a former Major General in connection with their alleged role in suppressing the movement.

The commission had asked Thapa and Katuwal to appear before the commission on Sunday and Monday respectively.

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