Durga Prasai arrested and remanded to custody for three days

Setopati, Kathmandu, Sept 22 : The Kathmandu District Court has remanded medical entrepreneur Durga Prasai to custody for three days.

According to Superintendent of Police Deepak Raj Awasthi, spokesperson for the Cyber Bureau of Nepal Police, the court granted granted permission to keep Prasai in custody for three days for investigation.

SP Awasthi said that Prasai’s custody was extended according to Section 47 of the Electronic Transactions Act.

Earlier, a team from the Cyber Bureau arrested Prasai in violation of the Electronic Transaction Act (ETA)-2008.from his residence in Bhaktpur on Sunday afternoon.

On Wednesday, the Kathmandu District Court had issued an arrest warrant against Prasai, Jeevan Pandey and Prakash Chandra Dahal.

A complaint had been filed against Prasai accusing him of making offensive statements on social media and of character assassination. Police have arrested him for questioning on the basis of the complaint.

Police said they will now open an investigation against Prasai under the Electronic Transactions Act based on the complaint.

Prasai has been involved in many controversies and in the past has campaigned for non-payment of bank loans. He has also made disparaging remarks against students studying medicine in Bangladesh in the past and has levied outrageous allegations against leaders from many political parties.

Prasai’s bodyguards Deepak Khadka and Ram Kumar Dhimal were arrested from the Supreme Court premises in March when they were entering the court for a hearing related to Prasai. Along with the gun, police also recovered two small magazines, two big magazines, one magazine holder, and 100 rounds of bullet inside a black bag from the two. They were later charged under the Arms and Ammunition Act. 

Agencies reported that according to the police, a complaint was filed against Prasai at the Cyber Bureau a week ago for publicly sharing conversations between two individuals involving a woman. The police stated that he was arrested based on a complaint filed by Rastriya Prajatantra Party leader Jwala Sangraula. She accused him of making objectionable statements on social media and committing character assassination. The police noted that he is charged under Section 47, which prohibits the publication or display of materials that violate public morality or decency, promote hatred or discrimination, or disturb harmonious relations among various ethnicities and communities. The penalties can include a fine of up to one hundred thousand rupees or imprisonment for up to five years, or both.

On September 18, the Kathmandu District Court granted permission for the police to arrest him and several YouTubers. However, after they did not leave their homes for four days following the issuance of the arrest warrant, the police forcibly entered the premises to apprehend them. On Sunday, the police team reached Prasai’s private residence in Kamero Tar, Ward No. 6 of Bhaktapur Metropolitan City, to arrest him. After waiting for an hour outside, they entered the compound when he did not open the gate. It was reported that during the process, Prasai's bodyguards used abusive language and there was some physical altercation. Both Prasai and his bodyguards were taken into custody.

Following Prasai's arrest, his supporters in Jhapa set fire to three Indian cargo trucks late at night. At around 11 PM, an unidentified group of four or five individuals set fire to a cargo truck with the license plate UP-57 AT-4493 near the Biring Bridge and then fled the scene. The fire was extinguished by the fire department of Birtamode Municipality. Similarly, around 3 AM, another Indian cargo truck with the license plate WB-73 E-3057 was set on fire near Giribandhu T-State in Birtamode Municipality-6. The police reported that a group of twelve people arrived on six motorcycles to set the truck on fire.

The driver of the truck was also injured during the arson, with some parts of his body burned. His identity has not been disclosed, but he is receiving treatment at a local hospital. Additionally, another Indian truck with the license plate WB-73 E-3056 was set on fire in Dhai Jan of Jhapa on Monday morning.

Annapurnaexpress: Durga Prasai is a businessman and a rabble-rouser, whose singular mission is to upset the existing political system. Before the government banned TikTok, his rants against politicians, particularly from the CPN-UML—with which he was briefly associated with—were hard to miss. Now Prasai is leading a campaign to get rid of the existing political system and restore monarchy and Hindu state. His group is due to organize a mass rally in Kathmandu today. To make this show of strength a success, his group has been working for months setting up an office at Koteshwor, adjacent to the Maoist party office. 

Prasai’s team members claim thousands of people from around the country will be attending the rally. The group has reserved hundreds of private buses to transport the rally participants and booked more than two dozen party venues in Kathmandu Valley for accommodation.  Authorities in Kathmandu are on high alert, particularly after UML’s Youth Wing has also planned to take out a rally of its own. Tensions have been shimmering between Prasai and UML for some time now, and the security agencies are trying hard to prevent them from clashing.

Organizing a mass rally in Kathmandu is a costly affair. According to one Nepali Congress leader, it costs at least Rs 30 million to organize a mass rally in the Capital city. So, who is funding Prasai? A member of Prasai’s campaign team says Prasai himself will foot the majority of expenses. But this claim is far from convincing, as Prasai himself has stated publicly that he is struggling to pay the interest on the loans he has taken from several banks. 

Some say Prasai organized the campaign with the express purpose of lowering the bank interests which he is unable to pay.  Another source of money for Prasai’s costly campaign is said to be a group of industrialists and business persons who wish to get rid of the Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government. As Prasai is also campaigning for restoration of monarchy and Hindu state, some royalist sympathizers have also funded the campaign through personal donations. 

Many royalist forces, including some leaders of Rastriya Prajatantra Party, have publicly said that they will be offering moral support for Prasai.  A source privy to Prasai’s campaign tells ApEx that the group has pooled sufficient funds from multiple sources.

Prasai has also amassed a large supporter base by offering them unrealistic hopes. Many of these supporters include the victims of fraud micro-finances, cooperatives and loan sharks. Over the past year, thousands of loan shark victims and people who lost their savings to fraud cooperatives have been staging protests in Kathmandu, pleading with the authorities to help them get their savings back. With the government unable to fully reimburse the victims, Prasai has rallied them behind him by promising to return their lost money. 

Prasai has also pledged to his supporters that loans up to Rs 2 million will be written off if his campaign succeeds. Then there are those people who have been hit hard by the current economic recessions. They too are supporting Prasai, hoping that his campaign will set the country’s economy right. 

It is clear that the people who are supporting Prasai are desperate to get out of their financial predicament. It is also clear that Prasai is simply exploiting them to fulfill his own vested interests. 

But Prasai seems bent on carrying on with his way as an agitator. He has also been emboldened by the sheer number of his supporters. It is because of his supporters that Prasai has been delivering provocative and objectionable statements during public events without caring for consequences. 

One particular case involves Prasai making derogatory remarks against the Marwadi community. There is another case filed against him with the Dhanusha District Police Office for playing the old national anthem at a program organized by a Hindu outfit.

Prasai’s primary target has been Prime Minister and CPN-UML and its Chairman KP Sharma Oli. He has made several unfounded allegations against Oli and UML. 

Oli has blamed the Dahal for creating a conducive environment for regressive elements. He has sternly demanded the prime minister to either suppress them or quit the government.

A senior Nepali Congress leader claims Prasai is being used by some internal and external forces to bring back monarchy after the Rastriya Prajatantra Party failed to do so.

But some observers say Prasai is popular because there are many people in Nepal who have grown immensely frustrated with the major political parties. Prasai’s anti-establishment position resonates with a large section of the masses. In many ways, say observers, the political parties of Nepal are responsible for creating a figure like Prasai.