Phanindra Pandey, Sher Bahadur Edi and Nirajan Thapa were arrested on Saturday by a team from Lainchaur Police while they were battering five persons at a cyber cafe in Thamel. The trio had arrested Ram Lama, Basanta Thapa, Nawaraj Ghimire and two unidentified persons on charge of trading brown sugar and taken them to the cafe at gunpoint.
Though the police claimed that the trio took action against the five, immediately after being tipped off about their involvement in drug smuggling, as a duty of the policemen, the trio did it without seeking permission from the senior officers concerned, specially taking a pistol from the logistic unit of the police.
"They seem to have taken into confidence our logistic unit to take a pistol and seven rounds of bullets in the name of DSP OM Rana, who is quite unaware of the things," said an officer. "This is evidently their scheme to crackdown on a gang of smugglers and gain benefits."
Police have also held the alleged smugglers -- Lama, Thapa and Ghimire -- and Bishal Acharya, who accompanied the cops and Bimal Bhujel, another suspect related to the gang. They are said to have had brushes with the law in the past. But, as they were not found to possess any drug, police have lodged a public offense case against them and started further investigation.
SSP Navaraj Silwal said police are also investigating claims made by the gang about extortion by the trio.
Kathmandu Police has taken action against some 22 policemen including eight officers over a year since it established Professional Standards Unit to receive and investigate complaints about police personnel misusing their authority and acting against the ethics.
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