KATHMANDU, March 8: Crackdown continued on leaders of the Communist Party of Nepal (CPN) on Thursday with the police seizing several weapons including two sub-machine guns during an operation in the outfit chief Netra Bikram Chand’s village in Kapilvastu.
Police have been ‘quietly’ launching nationwide crackdown on CPN leaders in the wake of bomb blasts carried out the party outside Ncell corporate office in Nakkhu, Lalitpur on February 22. Nakkhu blast, once of the several blasts targeted at Ncell office and transmission towers, had claimed one life and injured two others. NCP leaders had later taken responsibility and tried to justify the attacks by describing them as necessary for establishing a “people’s government”.
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During the raid at the home of Durga Bahadur Roka, a leader close to Chand, in Shivaraj Municipality, police also confiscated a Chinese pistol and two sub-machine guns (SMG) along with 202 rounds of bullet, said SP Achyutam Pudasaini.
Police suspect that the weapons, like an M16 and a light machine gun confiscated from the home of a CPN leader in Dharan last week, were looted from the security forces by Maoist guerrillas during the insurgency and were hidden after the former rebels joined the peace process.
Police said Roka has sustained minor injuries to his legs as he tried to escape the arrest during the raid. Two police personnel were injured after the locals hurled stones at police.
Roka was one of the several leaders to be arrested on Thursday. Hours after the raid in Chand’s village, police had arrested a few NCP leaders from the capital in connection with the Nakkhu blast.
