What is it that made Tiwadewala opt to go behind bars, contrary to his background as an entrepreneur-- vibrant, cognitive yet cunning and eventually notorious?
"I will study good books about agro-industry. After serving out the sentence, I will live the rest of my life in a farm-house," he was telling police officers on his way to Kathmandu, after falling to a police ambush at Panchkhal, Kavrepalanchok on Thursday.
One day was enough to turn his life upside down-- from preparations to start a huge organic coffee farm to submission to a substantial jail term.
"Not to worry, I had half expected I would be arrested. However, a stint in jail will prepare me better for a life of calm afterwards," he told the police, perplexing them with jokes as he spoke of his life after fleeing to evade the court verdict, and his queer plans for the future.
Tiwadewala has been convicted of the biggest ever financial crime in Nepal´s history. He absconded after Kathmandu District Court ruled against him for embezzling Rs 130 million through 75 letters of credit worth Rs 3,600 million. He had altogether 12 cases filed against him including two on charges of corruption.
From a hide-out in New Delhi, India, he bought some 500 ropani of land in different parts of Kavrepalanchok in the name of relatives, if the ´confidence´ he shared with police officers is to be believed. And the vary day he was about to start a coffee farm on a swath of some 150 ropani, he was promptly arrested. Police officers involved in his arrest said that at the time he was talking to his local managers about planting the coffee saplings.
Nepal Police had brought Tiwadewala under an Interpol red corner notice after he absconded. But his stay in India was free from trouble, he says. He even told the police officers how he had ´set up a line´ among Indian security officials to keep ´nuisance´ at bay. In Delhi, he enjoyed a circle of friends who also absconded from Nepal following convictions in the same cases-- including Ram Kumar Bhadrapuriya, who now owns an export business.
He did not say when he sneaked back into Nepal but had been living at a rented house in Dillibazzar. As all his property was auction by the banks he cheated, he has nothing left as family estate. But he feels carefree, owning land that he estimates is worth Rs 250 million.
"I have no money"
When Tiwadewala was produced before Kathmandu District Court Friday, court officials asked him to cough up the Rs 130 million. "Had I had that kind of money, I would have run a good business in India," Chitra Bahadur KC, an official at the court, quoted him as saying.
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