Rayamajhi commission grills four more

July 2, 2006
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The high-level judicial commission formed to probe into atrocities committed to suppress the April Movement interrogated four persons including two former junior ministers on Sunday.

Then assistant ministers Jagat Gauchan and Senate Shrestha, who were removed in a reshuffle in the erstwhile royal cabinet last year, and two dismissed SSPs of Armed Police Force (APF), Madhav Thapa and Druj Kumar Rai, were interrogated by the commission in connection with their alleged role in suppressing the people’s movement.

The two former ministers were quizzed for over two hours separately. Gauchan, who arrived at the commission’s office in Pulchowk with his ‘supporters’, claimed that he had no role in the clampdown on the people’s movement since he was not in the government. He said he was still loyal to the King.

Thapa and Rai were questioned in connection with the shooting at demonstrators in Gongabu and Kalanki areas in Kathmandu, in which at least four persons were killed and hundreds others were injured.

According to reports, SSP Rai had not only ordered the security forces under his command to open fire at a demonstration in Kalanki but had himself fired live rounds, killing at least four persons. Both were dismissed by the present government.

The commission, which has already quizzed seven key figures of the royal regime including vice-chairman of the royal government Dr Tulsi Giri, has summoned four others – former ministers Dan Bahadur Shahi, Salim Miyan Ansari and two dismissed APF AIGs, Rajendra Bahadur Singh and Rup Sagar Moktan, on Monday.