Nagarik Unmukti Party lawmaker Arun Chaudhary is on police wanted list after another defendant appeared in court last week.
Chaudhary was elected to the Kailali-2 House of Representatives in the November 20 election. He had contested two elections before that and lost both times.
He had lost to CPN-UML’s Mahadev Bajgain in the 2017 local elections. He had also run for the provincial assembly the same year, but suffered defeat again.
It has now come to light that Chaudhary has been on the police’s wanted list for the past nine years. Police have faced criticism for failing to arrest him despite the fact that he has been on the run for so long and also contested three elections in the intervening term.
Lawmaker Chaudhary and two others were found guilty in an arson case.
On April 22, 2013, Arun Chaudhary, Parshuram Chaudhary and Bir Bahadur Chaudhary were sentenced by a court under then District Judge Bishnu Subedi at the Kailali District Court to six months in prison. The court had also ordered them to pay Rs 819,423.
Bir Bahadur Chaudhary appeared in court on Thursday with a request for payment in lieu of imprisonment under Section 155 of the National Criminal Procedure (Code) Act 2017.
“If, in view of the age of the offender who is convicted, in the first instance, of any offense punishable by imprisonment for a term of one year or less, the seriousness of the offence, the manner of commission of the offense and his conduct Also, the court does not consider it appropriate to imprison the offender and is of the opinion that there will be no threat to public peace, law and order if he or she is released, and the court, for the reasons that they will be recorded, deems it appropriate to dispense with the requirement of a custodial sentence by paying a fine instead of the custodial sentence, the court may order that the offender is not subject to a custodial sentence if he pays money instead of imprisonment”, establishes Section 155 (1).
He had tried to pay Rs 300 a day in lieu of imprisonment, but the court ordered that he be sent to jail, according to Nawaraj Pandeya, a section officer at the district court.
After Bir Bahadur was sent to prison, it emerged that two other defendants in the case were still at large.
Asking who the other two were, it was discovered that lawmaker Arun Chaudhary had also gone on the run, Pandeya said.
“There were three defendants in this. The court found them guilty. But they were on the run from the beginning,” Pandeya said. “They did not appear on the date issued by the court. The court delivered its verdict in the case after they failed to appear. The incident has now come to light after Bir Bahadur appeared in court.”
According to Pandeya, the fire case dates back to August 19, 2008.
Lawmaker Chaudhary and others had beaten Sajan Chaudhary and had also set fire to the tractor (Lu 2 Ta 211) he was driving when he was returning with stones from Goranga Khola in Chisapani that day.
The tractor belonged to Mahadev Bajgain, who was to be elected mayor of Lamki Chuha Township in 2017. A case was filed against lawmaker Chaudhary and others based on Bajgain’s complaint.
He had claimed Rs 819,423 in damages for the arson attack on his tractor. The court had also ordered the defendant to pay the claimed amount.
Arun Chaudhary was found guilty of a criminal offence, but no one filed a complaint against him with the Electoral Commission when he stood for election, nor was he arrested by the police.
Police have remained silent on the matter even though it has been made public now that he is on their wanted list.
When we asked Nepal Police Spokesperson and Deputy Inspector General Poshraj Pokharel if lawmaker Chaudhary was on the police’s wanted list, he said they were asking about it.
“Maybe we’ll find out after studying the documents. Everything is there. But I was not aware that he was on the wanted list,” Pokharel told Setopati. “There are many criminals who escape. Not just one, but in great numbers. We are updating too. We can’t say anything until it’s clear.”
We were unable to reach Legislator Chaudhary for comment despite our repeated attempts.
