According to a member of the high-profile probe panel formed by Nepal Police headquarters, a compliant is found to have been lodged at the Metropolitan Police Crime Investigation Division (MPCID), purportedly by a group of Nepali nationals and claiming a sum in Nepali currency equivalent to US dollar 300,000.
The money, which was looted by two cops on October 17, was illegally held by a businessman and sources said it was converted into Nepali currency and a formal claim made through a complaint letter only to keep the owner out of trouble. While MPCO has been probing the case, holding the accused cops in illegal detention for more than three weeks, other officials have been questioning the motive behind setting the owner of the illegal-held US currency free.
Collaboration in the case between MPCO and MPCID, the latter known to have been interrogating the accused only a few days ago, turned to seeking legitimacy for the process, particularly after headquarters started showing more teeth, sources said.
Police headquarters on Tuesday formed a three-member probe panel led by Chief of Crime Investigation Bureau Deputy Inspector General Rajendra Singh Bhandari after a preliminary parallel investigation led by DSP Kuber Kathayat could not grapple with the magnitude of the case.
A member of the probe panel said the case would be ´rebuilt´ for carrying out conclusive investigations although the task would not be easy in view of the considerable gap. "We will start recreating the circumstances leading up to the purported looting," he said. "We will rake up the facts such as whether there was any protest from the owner´s side or any local had a hint of the goings-on."
However, the investigators seem somewhat pessimistic about tracing the money. "I think it has already navigated out of the hands of the accused," he added. The statement is in sync with MPCO directing MPCID not to put pressure on the accused in course of its supposedly ongoing interrogations.
"We will try still to find out where the money has possibly been transferred," the panel member told myrepublica.com.
The Bhandari panel is also mandated to probe the case of the 20 kg of silver of mid-October in which MPCO chief Kalyan Kumar Timalsina is alleged by line units to have breached his jurisdiction to release the illegal silver seized at Thankot from a businessman.
Related story
Wuhan lab head calls virus leak claims ‘pure fabrication’
