As per the decision made by the Special Committee meeting held on Wednesday, a cabinet meeting held in Singha Durbar Thursday decided to ask the top UCPN (Maoist) and CPN-Maoist leadership to submit the remaining 32 arms they were allowed to carry for their personal security. [break]The government has warned of taking action as per the existing legal provision if the arms are not submitted to the government within the stipulated deadline.
Then government had allowed the personal body guards of all 35 central committee members of then CPN (Maoist) to carry guns as per the broader agreement on the peace process. Though three of those weapons were already submitted to the government, 32 others, many of which are with the top leaders of the newly-formed CPN-Maoist, are yet to be submitted to the government even as peace process has almost come to an end.
However, top leaders of the newly-formed CPN-Maoist have been saying that they do not have any such weapons with them. “We do not have any idea about those weapons. Prachanda [Pushpa Kamal Dahal] was then military commander of the Maoist army. He should know about them,” CPN-Maoist Spokesperson Pampha Bhusal told Republica.
The cabinet decision to retrieve arms from top Maoist leaders coincides with the government´s drive to recover illegally-possessed weapons. The government has announced waiver of punishment for those who submit such weapons to the government within the stipulated deadline. There are apprehensions that the illegal weapons could be used to disrupt upcoming elections for the Constituent Assembly.
Also, the cabinet meeting directed the Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction (MoPR) to release remaining amount decided earlier for cantonment management, according to Minister for Information and Communications Madhav Prasad Poudel, who is also the government spokesperson.
The meeting also decided to form a secretary-level committee to manage the lands occupied earlier by the former combatants of the Maoist party. The committee has been formed considering the need for land for setting up the directorate general of the Nepal Army.
The committee comprises the secretaries from the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers, and home, defense, peace, education, forests and soil conservation, and the agriculture ministries. It has been given 15 days to submit the report. Among other things, the meeting decided to provide facilities equal to Supreme Court Justice -- a vehicle and a body guard-- to the Chairman of the Human Rights Commission, and its members.
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