Incident Reports

Con couple who posed as CIAA officials arrested

2015-01-13

Province 1, Morang, Kanepokhari

The Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) has arrested a couple for swindling money posing as CIAA officials. A team of anti-graft body caught Ram Bahadur Bhandari and his wife Tulasa Bhandari red-handed at a hotel in Biratnagar on Monday while they were taking Rs 50,000 from Sukadev Chaudhary, a senior divisional engineer of Sunsari- Morang Irrigation Project. The Bhandari couple, permanent residents of Katahari-1 in Morang district, had been demanding Rs 1 million from Chaudhary for the past 45 days under the pretext to settle a case filed against him at the CIAA. Claiming to be undersecretary Ganesh Timilsina at the CIAA, Ram Bahadur threatened Chaudhary over the phone and demanded the amount to settle the case. After several rounds of negotiation, the couple agreed to settle the case for Rs 50,000. “I have very good relations with CIAA chief Lokman Singh Karki. I will settle your case if you provide me Rs 1 million,” Chaudhary quoted Ram Bahadur as saying. Chaudhary informed the CIAA as the couple agreed to receive the amount at the Biratnagar-based Ratna Hotel. Ram Bahadur had served a nine-month prison term on the charge of possessing illegal arms and ammunitions. He claims to be the acting chairman of the Hindu religion protection forum. The CIAA team has also seized some letter pads of the forum from him.

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