The police Tuesday released the six Indian nationals who were arrested with two modern guns at Thankot check point yesterday while trying to enter the capital. They were handed over to the Indian embassy in Kathmandu at 6.00 PM this evening, police said.
“The Indians were set free after the embassy wrote a letter to the Foreign Ministry which said the arrested were political personalities and security officials who were on a pilgrimage to Pashupatinath and the motive behind the possession of arms was purely for security purposes,” DIG Ashok Shrestha, head of Valley Police Office said in an interview with the state-owned Nepal Television.
He added, “On that basis, we handed them over to the embassy at the presence of an officer called Anil Singh.”
The arrested were the brother of UP state government minister Surendra Pratap Singh, two of his security men and three aides.
Police had recovered a sub-machine gun with 30 bullets and a pistol from the their jeep plated UP32 AV 0.