Kathmandu: Leaving all and sundry to guess about his whereabouts, the former Tourism Minister who finalized the Lauda air deal, Tarini Datt Chataut, is missing.

To recall, Chataut is one whose Passport has been confiscated by the CIAA and also has been told not to leave the valley without notifying the authority.

Chataut’s sudden preference to go in for a long “hibernation” has raised several questions regarding his motive behind such an abrupt decision.

Chataut is considered to be one of the prime convicts in this Lauda air procurement deal. He, however, says that whatever he did was all under the instructions of the cabinet headed by Prime Minister Koirala.

High placed sources claim that Chataut has deliberately been asked to “vanish” from Kathmandu hum-bug till things settle in the favor of all those who have been wrapped by the CIAA last Friday.

Undenyingly, it is Chataut and Chataut only who knows better the “personality or even personalities in garb” who successfully “used” him to proceed with the Lauda procurement come what may.

It is this fear that prompted those men in garb to seduce Chataut to go underground.

Interestingly, the Nepali police which could trace the location of RDX gelatine in Kathmandu has till now failed to locate the hide-outs of Chataut.

However, Left newspapers claim that they “talked” to Chataut Monday evening wherein the latter posed that he was a “heart patient” and had been under treatment of the same.

Chataut’s mobile phone number is as follows: 98 10 33 46 7.

The million dollar question is why former minister Chataut preferred to go underground? Who advised him to do so? Will he come to the court voluntarily and divulge whatever secrets he possesses in his heart regarding the Lauda scam?

Legal experts opine that chances were very brighter for the smaller fishes (currently being interrogated by Patan court on the Lauda deal) of being freed by the appellate court because the cases framed by the CIAA against them were very “weak”.

Undoubtedly, Chataut’s revelations will give a new twist to the Lauda air affair.