“Dhungel was not working for Okhaldhunga when the incident occurred,” Okhaldhunga district secretary Ram Kumar Karki said at a press conference at Paris Danda on Saturday.[break]
The government led by Baburam Bhattarai has been dragged into controversy after his cabinet recommended to President Ram Baran Yadav to grant pardon to Dhungel.
The Maoist district committee argued that the Supreme Court (SC) verdict on Dhungel is erroneous.
“There was an agreement in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) to withdraw all legal cases related to the peace. But the SC in its unilateral and secret decision slapped life sentence with property attachment on Dhungel,” reads the statement distributed to media persons at the press conference.
The statement also argues that only those uncomfortable with the popularity of Dhungel, who was elected under the first-past-the-post, are making much hue and cry over the cabinet decision.
The district committee states that Dhungel is also being implicated in the murder of Ganesh Kumar Shrestha, though Dhungel was in jail when Shrestha was murdered.
Karki stated that he is hopeful that the president will grant amnesty to Dhungel as per the cabinet recommendation.
Stating that they alone would not abide by the CPA, the Maoist leaders argued that there should also be legal cases against the cadres of the NC and UML who were involved in the murder of Maoist cadres.
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