KATHMANDU: Is he a Maoist, communist or Madhesi? That’s the question on everyone’s lips in Kathmandu as
police and the five-party government remain
tight-lipped about the identity of a mystery minister who managed to escape being arrested in a sex sting that has netted police a lawmaker from a leading party.
On Friday, when Nepal made history by throwing open its former royal palace to the public, a constituent assembly member from the opposition Nepali Congress party also made headlines, though for a different reason.
Krishna Yadav, in his 40s, was arrested along with 33 others, including
army
personnel, as police raided several massage parlours in the capital that were allegedly a front for flesh trade. Yadav, who was elected from Rautahat district in the Terai plains of southern Nepal in April, beating his nearest rival from the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum party, was caught “in the act” from a private apartment behind Kathmandu’s famed Kanti Children’s Hospital, police said.
Police said they had raided the joint after complaints from neighbours. Since then Yadav, the father of two, has been released on bail while police said they would charge him under the Public Offence Act.
The ripples created by the arrest have grown with reports that Yadav was part of a pleasure-seeking group that also included a minister from the
government of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda. According to reports, the minister leapt out of the window when police raided the apartment, and fled without pausing to collect his scattered clothes.
Police came to know about the minister’s presence when they caught his chauffeur and an aide who had been told to keep guard over his car that was parked in the children’s hospital.
The issue was raised afresh by the Jana Aastha weekly Wednesday which reported that some ministers were pressuring the
prime minister to disclose the identity of the involved peer, saying they were being regarded with suspicion by the public.
The tabloid is trying to ferret out the closely guarded secret by a process of elimination. Using its sources, it has ruled out 10 ministers since some of them were out of Kathmandu at that time. Another – home minister Bam Dev Gautam - is ill and under medical treatment, and the rest are women.
However, it has raised a tongue-in-cheek question. The minister’s trousers were left behind, it says. In the past, it would have definitely indicated a man. But now, with two Maoist women ministers in the cabinet favouring trousers, the abandoned pants could belong to anyone, it has argued.
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