Organizing a press conference on the second day after the murder, police committed to make all facts related to the case public within three days. “We have already achieved around 70 percent success in the case," stated Chief of Jhapa Police SP Tarini Prasad Lamsal.[break]
SP Lamsal said the main motive behind the murder has yet to be revealed.
Police had recovered Paudel´s body from the porch of Purbanchal Sekuwa Corner at new bus park in Birtamode early Wednesday morning with right hand fractured and blood coming out of his head.
Paudel, 38, also the executive editor of Mechi Times daily, was attacked while he was in the hotel with hotelier Yuvaraj Giri with whom he was planning to publish ´Ujyalo Purba´ daily from the start of Nepali New Year.
Police had arrested 16 persons including Giri, owner of Purbanchal Sekuwa Corner and Guest House Somnath Dhakal and his wife Manju Yogesh Ranapaheli of Damak-10, Rojan Ranapaheli of Dharan -18 and Gopal Akten of Anarmani-3 Wednesday and are now focusing their investigations on five of them.
SP Lamsal said Giri and Paudel had dined with other persons in the hotel where six others had come to search for the duo. “We are still investigating what happened after that,” he said.
The report of the autopsy conducted at Mechi Zonal Hospital has yet to arrive.
Police claimed they have given top priority to the incident and a three-member team led by DSP Jeet Bahadur Shrestha of the Central Crime Investigation Bureau has reached Jhapa from Kathmandu Thursday. DIG Surendra Bahadur Shah also reached Jhapa to gather information while additional three police teams have been mobilized to hill districts of Mechi, and India in search of more suspects.
Meanwhile, the seven-member team led by Chairman Shiva Gaunle of the Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ), the umbrella organization of working journalists across the country, has started its work from Thursday.
The team visited the crime scene, talked with media persons and met chiefs of security agencies and district administration to put pressure on the administration to bring the guilty to book.
Media persons in the district and hundreds of businessmen, political activists, and representatives of different organizations staged demonstrations in Birtamode Thursday morning demanding action against the guilty.
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