SURKHET, March 18: The Netra Bikram Chand led Communist Party of Nepal (CPN) whose activities were recently banned by the government, has issued letters to contractors, elected officials and businessmen demanding ‘taxes’ for its so-called ‘people’s government’.
“After the government restricted our party’s activities, we have also revived our people’s government,” a leader of the outfit told Republica, “We have sent a circular to all our party units instructing them to collect taxes from everyone except for the consumer committees, which have direct public participation.”
Chand-led Maoists step up extortion drive
The Chand-led party has sent letters and made phone calls to construction contractors, businessmen, local representatives, community forest committees and other individuals asking them to pay “taxes”. And some have already started paying to the outfit. According to sources, the CPN has already collected between Rs 50,000 and Rs 100,000 each from various community forests in western Surkhet.
According to a community forest committee member, the outfit also issues receipt after extorting from them. “The party had actually demanded Rs 300,000 from us,” the member said, “But we just paid them a total of Rs 100,000 in two installments.”
They issue various threats, so there is no way to avoid these people, he said.
According to him, the outfit has been asking for 20-30 percent of the income of community forests and almost all community forests in western Surkhet have obliged.
“We have issued circular to our units to collect between Rs 10,000 and Rs 500,000 from everyone except for those working directly with the ordinary people,” a member of the Karnali-Bheri bureau of the CPN said, “For taxes, we have sent letters to some and others were contacted on the phone.”
