Rayamajhi panel grills Bista, top cops

The high-level judicial commission formed to probe into atrocities committed to suppress the April Movement interrogated four persons including two former junior ministers on Sunday.
Then assistant ministers Jagat Gauchan and Senate Shrestha, who were removed in a reshuffle in the erstwhile royal cabinet last year, and two dismissed SSPs of Armed Police Force (APF), Madhav Thapa and Druj Kumar Rai, were interrogated by the commission in connection with their alleged role in suppressing the people’s movement.

The two former ministers were quizzed for over two hours separately. Gauchan, who arrived at the commission’s office in Pulchowk with his ‘supporters’, claimed that he had no role in the clampdown on the people’s movement since he was not in the government. He said he was still loyal to the King.

Both Gauchan and Shrestha said they had no hand in suppressing the Jana Andolan as they were excluded from the cabinet and that they were not ministers at that time.

Gauchan said there was no doubt that he was a royalist but he never provoked the King to use force against the people. Shrestha said that he felt very sad when the King excluded him from the cabinet.

Thapa and Rai were questioned in connection with the shooting at demonstrators in Gongabu and Kalanki areas in Kathmandu, in which at least four persons were killed and hundreds others were injured.

According to reports, SSP Rai had not only ordered the security forces under his command to open fire at a demonstration in Kalanki but had himself fired live rounds, killing at least four persons. Both were dismissed by the present government.