Video footage shot by CNN-IBN and Star News TV channels on Friday of soldiers inside the Koteshwor residence of CPN-UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal, who has been placed under house arrest, was erased by the army, a newspaper report said on Saturday.

The tapes were returned nearly five hours after they were seized, Parul Malhotra, The Kathmandu Post daily quoted senior correspondent of CNN-IBN channel as saying.

According to Malhotra, the soldiers objected to being shown on tape surrounding Nepal’s residence and inside it, and asked the Indian TV channel crews to hand over the tapes. The crew refused and the argument went on for nearly an hour. “The officer demanding the tapes became quite unreasonable; he started contacting his seniors and became panicky.”

It was then that the TV crews offered to erase the footage, but the officer demanded that the tapes be handed over

Later, the offer to erase the tapes also became unacceptable as the officer “insisted” that since he did not know the technicalities, it had to be handled by a technical team.

In the end, he told the TV crews to either wait for about three hours for the tech team or leave the tapes behind and come back later to collect the erased tapes.

“Seeing no option, we had to leave the tapes and I had to go back at 5 p.m. and collect them, and the concerned footage was erased,” Malhotra informed.

Top leaders of the major opposition political parties have been placed under house arrest from Thursday ahead of the proposed mass meeting of the seven party alliance for Friday.