Politicians sheltering mafia in Nepal: ex-police official

KATHMANDU - Nine days after the daylight murder of controversial Nepali media tycoon Jamim Shah, a former police official said the “mafia” had entered the country and was operating with impunity due to protection by politicians.

Bharat GC, former acting police commissioner of Kathmandu Valley Metropolitan Police, also said concerns by India that Nepal’s soil was used for anti-Indian activities were true.

“It is very easy (for mafia gangs) to operate here,” the former top cop told Kathmandu Post daily Monday. “You can easily bribe politicians in this country. Political patronage for criminals makes it easy to operate out of Nepal.”

GC was one of the investigators in 1998 when a controversial Nepali MP, Mirza Dilshad Beg, reported to have been helping underworld don Dawood Ibrahim run a fake Indian currency network through Pakistan, Nepal and India, was gunned down near his residence.

“After Mirza Beg visited Mecca-Medina (in Saudi Arabia), he had returned to Kathmandu via Karachi with suitcases full of fake Indian currency,” GC said. “Some were recovered after his death.”

The anti-Indian activities of Beg were alleged to be supported by Jamim Shah, who owned Nepal’s first cable television network, and who was gunned down in a busy road in Kathmandu nine days ago.

Shah’s television channel, Channel Nepal, had aired erroneous reports about Bollywood star Hrithik Roshan, triggering anti-Indian attacks in Nepal in 2000.

GC said during his tenure, he had warned the government of probable political assassinations in the days to come. However, the then government tried to neutralise police investigations, he said.

The mafia entered Nepal with Beg’s killing after the coalition government removed the then inspector-general of police, who had begun to sow “fear in the hearts of criminals”, the former cop said.

In the past, he said, there was an attempt to form a special security plan. But the coalition government tried to minimise its efficacy by putting an intelligence agency official in charge and causing able senior police officials to resign.

“When there is a nexus between politicians and mafia, it can have dangerous ramifications,” he said.

Meanwhile, Nepal’s Information and Communications Minister Shankar Pokhrel, who is also the spokesman of the coalition government, was Monday reported as saying that Shah, like some other members of Nepal’s Muslim community, was the victim of the tension between India and Pakistan.

Jamim Shah’s killers, who came on a motorcycle, are believed to have escaped to India across the porous India-Nepal border.

Though the abandoned vehicle was found last week, police are yet to trace the man who bought it, reportedly an Indian, M. Akbar Haidar.

However, there was no official confirmation immediately. Police officials also declined to comment on a report Monday that a sub-inspector had been detained for questioning on the suspicion that he was involved in the well-planned execution.

About six people were reportedly involved in the attack on Shah, said to be led by a man called Babloo Singh.

Amid mounting public outcry for the arrest of Shah’s killers, a judicial commission formed by the government to probe the killing and submit its report within a week, will be sworn in later Monday and start working from Tuesday.