By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, July 1: The Metropolitan Crime Division has arrested four individuals with two cars which were brought for illegal selling without customs clearance from different places of Kathmandu Valley.
Further investigation into the group also revealed that they were involved in forging government ID cards and educational documents, among others.
It all started when the division was informed about a four-wheeler which had entered the Valley without clearance from the customs for the purpose of selling it illegally.
The division first confiscated the four-wheeler, which was silver Hyundai Creta with registration number Ga 3 Cha 1462, on Monday afternoon from the area around Gopi Krishna Cinema Hall in Ward 7 of Kathmandu Metropolis.
Kamal Babu Bhatt, 33, of Lamjung, was arrested with the car. “When Kamal was arrested and interrogated, we found out that there was another Hyundai Creta, which also didn’t pass through the customs, in Bhaktapur. We then acted as a buyer with the help of Kamal and confiscated it as well,” said Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Chandra Kuber Khapung.
The team from the division who were acting as buyers then came in contact with the car in Ward 6 of Suryabinayak Municipality. The car had the registration number of State 3-01 024 Cha 0253.
Authorities also arrested two other individuals – Arun Khadka, 24, and Madhu Silwal, 41, with the car.
Since the two cars were brought without customs clearance, they were not supposed to have the legal documents. However, both cars had blue-book registered in Kamal’s name.
“We got information about another individual who prepared the forged documents for the cars. We then used Kamal to arrest the forger from the premises around Pashupatinath Temple on Monday night,” said SSP Khapung, chief of the Metropolitan Crime Division.
The division identified the forger as 41-year-old Rewati Raman Niroula, a permanent resident of Morang. When the division raided his rented room in Shantinagar area, they found several forged documents and stamps.
“Fake mark sheets of different educational institutions, driving licenses, and other documents of different government bodies were seized from Rewati’s room. We also seized 191 different stamps,” read a statement by the division.
As per the division, a Hyundai Creta’s market value in Nepal is Rs. 7 million but the group planned to sell their illegal cars at Rs. 4.5 million.
The division has handed all the four individuals to the Metropolitan Police Range, Kathmandu for further legal procedures and investigation. If it is possible to find the records, authorities also plan to dig out the ones who used Rewati to forge documents in the past.
“We request the public to buy a vehicle only after confirming whether it is legal and the owner’s identity is true or not. Similarly, legal vehicles are not found so cheap due to which the public must be careful,” said SSP Khapung.