Speaker Ghimire informed of Lamichhane’s arrest; RSP cadres protest against arrest of chair Lamichhane

Kathmandu / Oct 19: Speaker Devraj Ghimire has been informed about the arrest of a Member of the House of Representatives, Rabi Lamichhane.

District Police Office, Kaski furnished information to the Speaker in writing, according to the Director General at Federation Parliament Secretariat, Padma Prasad Pandey.

Pande shared it in a notice today.

Lamichhane, who was elected a HoR member from Chitwan constituency no 2, has been arrested for investigating the charge of criminal offence after receiving permission from the District Court, Kaski.

Any official set to arrest any member of the federal parliament needs to share this information immediately with the House Speaker in accordance with Article 103 (6) of the constitution of Nepal.

Chairman of Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), Lamichhane has been charged with siphoning funds from Surya Darshan Cooperative to his media start-up. He was arrested from the party office, in Vanasthali, Kathmandu on Friday.

Rastriya Swatantra Party cadres protest against arrest of chair Lamichhane

In response to the arrest of former home minister Rabi Lamichhane, who is also chairman of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), members of the party launched protests in Pokhara on Saturday morning around 11:30 am at Human Rights Chowk in Chipledhunga.

Also, hundreds of his supporters staged protests at Maitighar Mandal in Kathmandu against his arrest in the afternoon.

Carrying placards and banners, RSP cadres and supporters took to the streets opposing the government’s actions. Party leaders addressed the crowd, delivering speeches as the protest intensified.

Some leaders from Kathmandu including party Vice-president DP Aryal and spokesperson Manish Jha, who visited Pokhara to lead the protest, addressed the crowd.

Lamichhane’s supporters both in Kathmandu and Pokhara claimed that the action against him was politically motivated.

Lamichhane was apprehended on Friday by a Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) team of Nepal Police at the party’s central office in Kathmandu to investigate charges of cooperative fraud and organised crime. He was subsequently taken by road to the District Police Office in Kaski.

A seven-member parliamentary special committee formed in May to investigate the cooperatives scam recommended legal actions against Lamichhane and three other individuals for their involvement in cooperative frauds. He faces allegations of misappropriating funds from a cooperative while serving as the managing director of the Gorkha Media Network that ran now-defunct Galaxy 4k Television before joining politics in June 2022.