Former Home Minister and influential Nepali Congress leader Khand arrested in fake refugee scam

Former Home Minister and influential leader of Nepali Congress Bal Krishna Khand was arrested on Wednesday for his alleged involvement in the fake Bhutani refugee scam.

A team of Nepal Police detained Khand, a close associate of Nepali Congress President and former prime minister Sher Bahadur Dueba, along with his personal secretary Narendra K.C. from their residence in Kathmandu early on Wednesday, according to Nepal Police spokesperson Kuber Kadayat. Khand was arrested from his Chabahil residence, while K.C. was arrested from Jadibuti of Kathmandu on Wednesday morning.

The former home minister was arrested for his alleged involvement in the fake refugee racket under which Nepali nationals were sent to the United States by forging fake documents of them being Bhutanese refugees.

According to media reports, an audio tape was released in which Arzu Rana Deuba, wife of former PM Deuba, and Khand's wife, Manju Khand, are accused of receiving millions of rupees from victims of this scam.

Nepal Police is currently investigating the fake Bhutanese refugee scam, which also involves a former senior minister and other top-level former government officers.

Police arrested ten people earlier, including former secretary at Home Ministry Tek Narayan Pandey, Indrajit Rai, security advisor to the former home minister and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) leader Ram Bahadur Thapa, and Sandeep Rayamajhi, son of former deputy prime minister and secretary of CPN-UML Top Bahadur Rayamajhi. An arrest warrant was issued to arrest CPN-UML secretary and former Deputy Prime Minister Top Bahadur Rayamaji for his involvement in the case. CPN-UML on Tuesday expelled Rayamajhi from the party’s membership.

In a big relief to the Nepal government, the US and some other Western countries accepted around 100,000 thousand refugees from Bhutan, who had taken shelter in eastern Nepal districts for decades since the 1990s.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)