Police send victims’ clothes, kiln ash for lab test in Alam case

RAUTAHAT, Oct 25: Police have sent for laboratory tests clothing items of victims of a bomb blast in Rautahat in 2008 and ashes from the brick kiln into which they were allegedly thrown and killed. Former minister Mohammad Aftab Alam is alleged to be behind the killings.

Police arrested Alam on October 13. A sitting lawmaker from the Nepali Congress, Alam is accused of taking as many as 22 blast-injured along with the bodies of those who were killed to a nearby brick kiln and throwing them into the furnace to destroy any evidence of the bomb blast that occurred on the eve of first Constituent Assembly election.

Police believe that the lab tests will determine if there are any human remains in the ashes recovered from the site where the brick kiln had stood. The lab tests will help determine if the human remains match the clothes of those who were allegedly killed in the blast, according to police sources.

Officials at District Police Office (DPO) Rautahat said the tests will be conducted at the Central Police Forensic Science Laboratory. If necessary, the clothes and ashes will be sent overseas for further tests, according to DPO officials.

Police also said more eye witnesses of the blast have started recording their statements. According to police, a laborer who helped rebuild the house damaged by the blast has already recorded a statement. The house damaged in the accidental bomb blast was reconstructed overnight by Alam’s men, it is stated.

A brick kiln laborer has also recorded a statement with police, saying that the dead bodies were thrown into the kiln during night. “The bodies were brought to the kiln at around 1 am. I saw them being thrown into the kiln,” the laborer said in his statement recorded by Rautahat police.

Police have also started trying to contact the kin of Indian citizens who were allegedly killed in the bomb blast. Several Indians who were hired by Alam to make bombs for creating terror on the eve of the election, were also allegedly killed and injured in the blast.

As police investigations continue to build the case against Alam, DPO Rautahat has decided to summon the then CDO, the then chief of the Armed Police Force (APF) in the district and the then government attorney for further investigations.

Meanwhile, police are preparing to present Alam before Rautahat District Court to further extend his remand. The court has already remanded Alam twice.