By A Staff Reporter

Kathmandu, Nov. 2: Former Speaker Krishna Bahadur Mahara, who is facing a rape case at the district court, denied all the charges labelled against him and said that all accusations hurled at him were false.
Mahara didn’t accept the charges at the hearing over the rape case filed against him at Kathmandu District on Friday. The hearing was held at the single bench of judge Sudarshan Raj Pandey.
The district attorney had filed the rape case against Mahara, 25 days after his arrest on the rape complaint of a female staffer of the Federal Parliament Secretariat. The court will decide whether to release Mahara on bail or send him to jail once the hearing concludes.
In his written statement to the District Attorney Office, Kathmandu which was presented at Kathmandu District Court on Friday, Mahara said that he knew the woman since 1990s as she had taken temporary shelter at his home for four years.
“She was like my student, and still today she calls me as Mahara Sir,” Mahara said in his statement presented at the court on Friday morning. “I’m also like his guardian since 1990s as her marriage was also happened under my guardianship,” he said.
He said he himself and the family of Roshani Shahi used to frequent each other’s houses and even used to have dinner together, he said.
“We used to have frequent talks about the transfer of Roshani’s husband and herself,” he said adding, “One day on September 29, she came to my office room at Singha Durbar at around 3 to 4 pm, and she requested me repeatedly to adjust her in the employee integration task citing that she was a victim of partiality in the integration process. During the time, I tried to console her many times but she was not satisfied with my advice.”
“After the office hour was over, I went to my quarter in Pulchowk as asked in the question at 18:30 pm on the evening of September 29, I was in a meeting with former Forest Minister at the quarter, but at that time, there was no any phone call between me and the woman,” he said.
Mahara had even told the court he did not consume hard liquor as reported in media. “I have not bought any type of alcohol from the market for the past 12 years,” he said and added that he was not carrying alcohol with him to the house of woman. “Occasionally, I take wine,” he said.
He said that on September 29, he tried to make a phone call to Shahi’s husband could not reach him as he was out of Kathmandu Valley. “Thinking of her, I then went to the location of her premises taking a private car of mine with security personnel at around 7:00 pm, but I did not enter into her room during the hour,” he said. “I only went to the area near her rented apartment but didn’t get in to her room at that time,” Mahara said.
“I then dialled a mobile phone number of her to console her regarding the issue of staff integration, but could not be contacted for many times, then I left the area of her room and went to my quarter,” he said.