Do laws and institutions to preserve Nepal’s ancient monuments work?

ANUP OJHA

Last week, ‘Jalahari’, the golden receptacle that covers the base of the Shiva Linga and collects and drains liquids like water and milk offered to Lord Shiva at the Pashupatinath Temple, made headlines after the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) took it off from the main temple to measure its weight. The golden receptacle had been installed in the third week of February in 2021.

Although the CIAA didn’t find any significant difference in the weight of the gold used in the Jalahari installed in the precincts of the Pashupatinath Temple, the issue sparked a debate as the Pashupati Area Development Trust (PADT) was found to have flouted due process.

According to CIAA officials, the gold in the Jalahari was measured at 107.46kg, which is close to its weight stated earlier—107.92kg.

Last year, amid severe criticism from local residents, heritage conservationists and priests, the PADT went ahead with its plans to replace the temple’s silver Jalahari with a golden one. Oddly, the then President Bidya Devi Bhandari installed a 96.822kg golden structure just hours before a Supreme Court stay order.

The apex court issued the order after hearing a petition filed by the former treasurer of the Trust, Narottam Baidya, and lawyer Nikita Dhungana who had challenged the government’s decision to install the golden Jalahari.

The writ petitioners had claimed that replacing the silver Jalahari with a golden one was against the Ancient Monument Preservation Act-1956.

Section 12 of the Act says that one who destroys, demolishes, removes, alters, defaces or steals an ancient monument or archaeological object is subject to punishment with a fine of Rs25,000 to Rs 100,000 or with an imprisonment of 5 years to 15 years or both, after recovering an amount equal to the claimed amount for the damage to the object concerned.

The Act has been limited to the paper, Baidya said. “If only the government authorities had followed the Act, they would not have installed the golden Jalahari,” he added.

Although the Ancient Monument Preservation Act-1956 is crucial to preserving the ancient monuments that have historical and archeological value, whether it is actually being implemented is a different matter altogether.

“The local, provincial and federal levels should strictly follow the Act, and the Department of Archaeology (DoA) should ensure that they are doing so,” said Baidya. “But in most cases, the department takes little or no action.”

Why the Act?

The Act says any ‘ancient monuments’, historical buildings and heritage sites such as temples, houses, abbey, cupola, monastery, stupa, bihar, etc., which are older than one hundred years are important from the view of history, arts, science, architecture or art of masonry and need to be preserved in their original form. Any modification in the object, if necessary, requires authorisation from the Department of Archaeology.

The Act states that if any of the monuments needs conservation, maintenance and renovation, it can be carried out by the Guthi Sansthan under supervision, technical service and direction of the department. The Section 13(2) says that if a person or an institution possesses traditional, ancestral or archeological objects that are over one hundred years old, the owner of such collections shall have to register such items in a prescribed office.

“The main purpose of establishing the Act is to preserve ancient monuments and heritage in their original form, but the problem is that even the officials including the Head of State seem unaware of the importance of our heritage,” said Bhim Nepal, a monument conservationist.

Who owns the monuments?

In relation to ownership, ancient monuments are classified under two categories: public ancient monuments and private ancient monuments. In terms of their importance, these monuments come under three categories—the ones having international importance, national importance and local importance.

The Pashupatinath Temple covers all three categories. And, as it is listed among the UNESCO World Heritage Sites, it holds great historical, cultural and religious significance and it has both artistic as well as archeological values.

According to Section 3 (B) of the Act, it’s the Department of Archeology that owns them and it shall conserve, maintain and renovate public ancient monuments.

Meanwhile, the conservation, maintenance and renovation of monuments under private ownership, and which are inside the protected monuments area, shall be carried out by the concerned person. If such monuments need to be repaired, or touched, the person should take permission from the DoA.

How active is the department?

Although the Act gives the DoA authority to look after ancient monuments, it has not been able to do its job effectively. “The Act was formulated in good faith but the DoA has not been able to function as desired to make it effective,” said Ganapati Lal Shrestha, a heritage conservation activist.

Meanwhile,Prakash Mani Sharma,asenior advocate who has long been advocating for the preservation of cultural and natural heritage, says the main problem of the department is that it’s a unit that works under the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation.

“For its greater effectiveness, the DoA should be an independent high-powered autonomous authority as in India,” said Sharma.

He also expressed concern at the state of seven out of the 10 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Nepal in the Kathmandu Valley: Durbar squares of Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur, Swayambhunath, Bauddhanath, Pashupatinath and Changunarayan.

“It’s high time the department was given more independence,” said Sharma.

Shrestha, the conservationist, said that the district administration and local units are not serious about preserving heritage sites. “In cases of breach of archeological values, the role of the department of archaeology is limited to just dispatching a letter,” he added.

Shrestha said unless the DoA has its own police or security force that can intervene when someone breaches the archaeological value of the historical sites, it can’t effectively preserve any monuments or structures. He said the chief district officer and the local authority should work with the DoA to preserve monuments.

Protection of the shrines and temples

Conservationists say the issue of protection and conservation of heritage drew public attention mainly after the 2015 earthquakes when a large number of heritage sites were destroyed or damaged. According to the department, a total of 745 historical, cultural and religious monuments in 20 districts were damaged in the disasters.

“But the local authority and the Kathmandu Valley Development Authority have never coordinated with DoA for the protection and preservation of heritage sites,” said Shrestha.

The Ancient Monument Preservation Act-1956 doesn’t allow construction of underground structures near heritage sites, but the Kathmandu Metropolitan City has been giving permissions for such underground construction.

“Unless the local, provincial, and federal governments are serious about the Act’s implementation and are ready to follow the DoA’s instructions, it will be impossible to protect shrines and temples with historical and archeological importance,” said Shrestha.

Breaches of the Act

Over time, there have been many breaches of the Act, and the PADT and Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) are among the main violators. For example, apart from the Jalahari issue, the Trust had back in February 2019 used ‘concrete’ to erect pillars and fill 12 dug pits in the unique Vishwaroop temple in the premises of Pashupati. But it backtracked after public criticism. Six months prior to the controversy, the Trust had come under fire after it used plain cement concrete—a binding agent in construction materials—to build the 170-metre pavement in the Mrigasthali area that led to the temple.

In December 2017, too, the Trust was widely criticised for using concrete in the reconstruction of historic Bageshwori Temple in Pashupati. And, just five months ago, the Trust demolished one of the four Shivalayas in the temple premises, upsetting many religious and cultural activists.

Similarly, the KMC was criticised for using concrete at the historical Rani Pokhari in 2017 and Kamal Pokhari in 2021, and had invited controversy for erecting concrete structures at the Kathmandu Durbar Square, another UNESCO World Heritage Site, without consulting the DoA.

“The then prime Minister KP Sharma Oli announced, with great fanfare, the construction of a new Dharahara in 2016, but he ended up making a concrete pillar. This was not in keeping with the norms of heritage conservation,” said Nepal, the monument conservationist.

“If he was interested in conservation, he could have rebuilt it using original material. This shows the level of understanding of the value of heritage and their conservation among senior politicians and bureaucrats. Unless they understand the value of such tangible and intangible heritage, the Act alone can’t work.”

Should the Act be amended?

“Even though the Act was formulated six decades ago, the law was made with great foresight for the preservation of heritage sites,” said advocate Sharma.

He said one immediate amendment that needs to be made in the Act is that it only talks about preserving tangible heritages such as physical artefacts and their original structures. “But it is silent on intangible heritages such as Jatras [festivals], Parba, ancient knowledge, wisdom, skills, hymns, and mantras,” Sharma added.

The Kathmandu Post

Published at : July 2, 2023

https://kathmandupost.com/national/2023/07/02/do-laws-and-institutions-to-preserve-nepal-s-ancient-monuments-work

Nepal not doing enough to tackle online child abuse

According to police cyber bureau, 110 cases of sexual abuse against children were reported in the past 11 months.

ANUP OJHA

Seven months ago, a woman in her mid-twenties sexually abused her nine-year-old sister. She also took pictures, made abusive videos by stripping the sister naked and sent it to her boyfriend, via Gmail.

In the same week, while she was sending explicit content through email, the police cyber bureau in Bhotahity received an AI-generated notification about child pornographic content from Google, which actively scans images that pass through Gmail accounts to see if they match child pornography.

“You can’t imagine that an elder sister can do such things to her small sibling, and send it to her boyfriend,” said Pashupati Kumar Ray, the bureau’s spokesman.

After two months of investigation, the bureau found that the woman was from Bhaktapur, where the two siblings were living with their mother, a widow. Later, when the police arrested the woman, they discovered that she was the family’s sole breadwinner.

“The woman has been kept in custody, and a rape case has been filed against her,” said Ray.

In another case, a 20-year-old man and a 13-year-old girl become friends through an online gaming app, FreeFire, where multiple players can play as they verbally interact. The online gaming app developed by Garena for Android and iOS was in 2019 the most downloaded mobile game globally.

As they played online, they exchanged phone numbers and started to communicate through Facebook messenger. Later, the two met and the man raped the girl.

As time passed, the man started calling the girl to continue their physical relationship, and when the girl refused, he threatened to send her nude pictures and videos to her relatives and parents. Eventually, the girl ignored the man’s advances. As he had threatened, the man posted her nude videos on social media.

“The girl came to cyber bureau with her mother to file a complaint, but we told her to lodge a rape case,” said Ray.

These are two cases of how underaged children are being sexually abused through the internet. According to data provided by the cyber bureau, this fiscal year alone, 110 cases of online sexual abuse have so far been registrered.

The bureau has in the past three years received 460 cases of online sexual abuse of children.

“The issue of sexual abuse of children and teenagers is getting serious by the day,” said Ray.

Officials say the best way to prevent children from online abuse is for the parents to limit their internet use. The longer they are online, the greater their chances of facing online violence such as cyberbullying, sextortion and honey trapping.

Not only in Nepal but globally too children and teenagers are being victimised online.

Children are becoming prone to cyber risks as the internet becomes an integral part of their lives. Most parents allow their children to use cellphones in their leisure time.

According to a survey conducted by the DQ Institute, an international think tank dedicated to setting global standards for digital intelligence education, three in four children worldwide experienced at least one cyber-risk last year.

The institute’s study in 2022 found 50 percent of children and adolescents across the surveyed countries were affected by cyber-bullying, while around 40 percent experienced cyber threats and 25 percent were exposed to violent and sexual content.

“Nepal is more vulnerable to children-related cyber crimes,” said cyber security expert Bijay Limbu, who is also the chief executive officer at Vairav Technology.

“We don’t have an Act to protect children online, so those who abuse children over the internet can easily escape,” said Limbu.

Even the Ministry of Women, Children, and Senior Citizens in 2021 approved and put in place the Online Child Protection Procedure, 2021, with a view to curbing online abuses of minors. But that has so far been ineffective.

The Child Protection Procedure says it is the duty of internet service providers to implement measures to restrict children’s access to harmful or adult content on the internet.

Earlier, the Nepal Telecommunications Authority had also brought ‘Guidelines for Parents, Guardians, and Educators on Child Online Protection’, in order to cut the probable risks of the internet as reported by the news website onlinekhabar, but it is unclear how effective the guidelines have been.

Experts say lack of awareness among parents about the harm caused by online content, and absence of proper law to monitor online sexual abuses are proving to be major problems.

“If you look at developed countries, children there don’t have access to adult or gaming content. The law does not permit it, but in Nepal, giving children cell phones and the internet is seen as the best way to keep them engaged, and they can easily stray on to any website,” said Limbu.

The US Privacy Protection Act of 1988 , under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), imposes specific requirements on operations of websites and online services to protect the privacy of children under the age of 13.

However, in Nepal, it has almost become a norm for parents to give their cell phones to children. Many children are addicted to gaming apps such as Pubg, Fortnite Battle Royal, and Counter Strike. These are mediums, say experts, that can victimise children sexually.

Those working in the field of child protection and advocacy for child rights, say the risk is aggravated by inadequate response mechanisms, weak law enforcement and lack of awareness on safe use of the internet among children and their parents.

Anil Raghuvanshi, founder of ChildSafeNet, a non-governmental organisation established with a mission to make digital technology safer for children, said the government must take the initiative to make the internet safe for children.

“To do so, the government should include internet safety courses in school curricula. Nepal should then set up police cyber bureaus in all provinces, and build capacities of the district police offices to probe online crimes against children,” said Raghuvanshi.

The parents themselves need to learn about online safety and guide their children accordingly, added Raghuvanshi. “The children should be encouraged to share their online experiences and support should be provided when there is evidence that they are experiencing online harm.”

The Kathmandu Post 

Published at : June 9, 2023

https://kathmandupost.com/national/2023/06/09/nepal-not-doing-enough-to-tackle-online-child-abuse

‘Highly anticipated’: Activists stoked as government announces feasibility study plan for medicinal marijuana

ANUP OJHA AND TIMOTHY ARYAL

When Finance Minister Prakash Sharan Mahat hashed out the details of the government’s fiscal plan on a characteristically sober note, marijuana lightened up the mood.

He said the government would carry out a feasibility study for marijuana farming for medicinal purposes in the upcoming fiscal year. Inside the Parliament, where the minister was reading out the budget document, echoes of laughter went up in the air and the finance minister himself couldn’t help but chuckle, leading some sceptics to question later on social media if he was under the influence. That’s highly improbable, albeit Nepali leaders often bash out statements that make one scratch their heads and exclaim, ‘What are you smoking!’

For many, however, it is not entirely a laughing matter. In many ways, the finance minister’s announcement is a watershed in the movement for legalisation of cannabis in the country with a storied past of ganja trade and tourism. Over the past few years, there have been growing calls to legalise the herb in Nepal, citing its medicinal and economic potential.

This aligns with the wave of legalisation across the world, from the US and Canada to Thailand. With the fiscal budget presented on Monday, the Nepal government has opened the door for something similar. “We will carry out a feasibility study for ganja cultivation for medicinal purposes,” Mahat told Parliament.

Though this is not the first time ‘ganja talk’ made it to Parliament, it is the first time an incumbent minister took it up. It took five decades of criminalisation for the country to come to this point. Nepal had criminalised marijuana in 1973, ceding to the American pressure when the country led by Richard Nixon was high on spreading its ‘war on drugs’ across the world. According to Narcotics Drug Control Act 1976, anyone in possession of cannabis will land in prison and be slapped a fine of up to Rs25,000.

The finance minister’s announcement didn’t come out of the blue. It followed years of sustained movement. In last year’s general elections, at least one candidate contested the polls on the pro-legalisation plank. Though the candidate from the right-wing Rastriya Prajatantra Party fought the poll with a winningly thought-out slogan—‘jaya desh, jaya chares’, or ‘glory to the country, glory to charas’—he lost it. In 2020, a bill seeking legalisation of cultivation and consumption of medical marijuana was registered in Parliament.

The bill said that any farmer with a desire to cultivate marijuana can get a licence from the local government or the respective district administration after specifying the area of cultivation, the people involved, and an assurance against unauthorised use. It proposed the formation of a 14-member marijuana board led by the health secretary to regulate and manage the cultivation and sale of marijuana. The privately-registered bill, however, didn’t make any headway.

Now Sher Bahadur Tamang, lawmaker of the then Nepal Communist Party and former minister for law and justice who had registered the bill in Parliament, is a happy man. “I want to thank the government,” he told the Post. “The issue is now a part of the government’s formal announcement and we need to formulate a separate law for it.”

In the same year, before Tamang filed the bill in the Parliament in February (2020), Nepal Communist Party lawmaker Birodh Khatiwada, also a former health and population minister who represented a constituency in Makawanpur district, had registered a motion of public importance at the Parliament Secretariat for a discussion on legalising marijuana cultivation. Forty-five lawmakers of other ruling parties seconded the proposal.

“If the government can control its misuse, marijuana has many medical and economic benefits,” Tamang said. “It can boost the country’s economy.”

Although there is a longstanding ban on marijuana, the herb has, for ages, been part of Nepali life and has been used as spice, medicine and for making clothes, and is specifically used during the Mahashivaratri festival.

It is scientifically established that cannabis has high-value medicinal use in preparing a wide range of drugs to treat migraine, headache, pain, insomnia and anxiety.

Rajiv Kafle, an activist who has been campaigning to legalise cannabis in Nepal for over a decade, said that he welcomes the fresh government drive.

“In the past three years, there has been a lot of lobbying in Parliament to legalise cannabis and it has finally borne some fruit,” said Kafle, 50.

Likewise, Legalisation of Marijuana in Nepal, an upstart campaign, posted on Twitter, “After a 50-year wait, the government’s upcoming decisions on the cultivation and distribution of medical cannabis are highly anticipated.”

Historical records show that the cultivation and sale of cannabis was legal in Nepal till the early 1970s. Hippies from the West flocked to Nepal in the late 1960s and early 70s as the country was considered a safe haven for cannabis users. They brought with them a demand for commercialising the country’s marijuana and hashish. That new market also invited undue attention. However, both domestic and international researchers allege that it was pressure from the United States that prompted Nepal to criminalise the cultivation, sale and consumption of cannabis.

According to the data from the Nepal Police headquarters, a total of 25,476 kg of illegal marijuana was confiscated from across the country in the past two years.

Although the Nepal Police releases information of people arrested for possession of marijuana almost every day, it does not have a cumulative data on arrests and the people who are serving time in prison for it, said Deputy Inspector General Kuber Kadayat, who is also the central spokesman of the Nepal Police.

Kafle, who primarily campaigns online through his Twitter handle @RajivKaflay and the hashtag #LegalizeNepal, says the criminalisation of cannabis has affected the poor and marginalised people the most. “This should change now,” he said.

Activists point out that with the global legal marijuana market booming, Nepal could also be a part of the phenomenon and reap the benefits. The global marijuana market is expected to be a $73.6 billion industry by 2027, with the medical marijuana segment accounting for more than 70 percent. The unrefined and unprocessed marijuana market was valued at $9.1 billion in 2019, with more than 88 percent of revenue limited to North America.

Still, most countries in the globe prohibit the use of cannabis for recreational purposes. Many, however, have adopted a policy of decriminalisation to make simple possession a non-criminal offence. Amid this, a debate is lighting up as to whether or not cultivation and consumption of cannabis should be legalised in Nepal, as it comes at a time when countries like Canada, South Africa, Thailand, Uruguay and 22 others have legalised the herb. In the US, for instance, 37 states have medical cannabis laws on the books, while 21 states allow adult recreational use.

Amid this, Nepal’s finance minister’s announcement on medicinal marijuana comes as “good news”, said Abhi Subedi, a former professor of English literature known for hanging out with the hippies during the heydays of Nepal’s ganja tourism.

“There should be a concrete plan,” Subedi, who is also a columnist for the Post, said. “It shouldn’t just be a ganja talk.”

Meanwhile, former Deputy Inspector General Hemanta Malla Thakuri cautions that the government should navigate the haze with care, as permitting the cultivation of marijuana without a proper regulation will be problematic.

“If Nepal allows the cultivation of marijuana, more organised criminals will come to Nepal and it will promote corruption,” Malla said. “For instance, you could have noticed how corrupt the police and local administration were when it came to marijuana and opium cultivation in Bara and Parsa.”

He doubts the capacity of government authority or the security apparatus, which has already failed to maintain proper law and order in the society, to control the cultivation of marijuana for medical purposes.

He pointed out how flawed policies have led California, the first state in the US to legalise marijuana which generated the highest revenue from weed cultivation, to face more problems now. “It is now facing big problems because of the thousands of gangsters and criminals created by the open use and trade of marijuana,” he said.

Sound policies are a must if the government is to allow the herb’s cultivation, Malla added. But farmers in Nepal haven’t entirely complied with the ban; cannabis is commercially cultivated in Parsa, Makawanpur, Dadeldhura, Kailali and the Kathmandu Valley. The apparent hide-and-seek game between the police and the farmers is a pervasive phenomenon as police destroy marijuana plants.

This should also be considered in the new law as most farmers live off ganja farming and the black market should also be prevented, Kafle, the activist, said.

“Overall, it’s a win-win for us,” Kafle said. “We are more than ready to help the government out on the study. With sound policies and regulation in place, I think we’d do well together.”

The Kathmandu Post

Published at : June 1, 2023

https://kathmandupost.com/national/2023/06/01/highly-anticipated-activists-stoked-as-government-announces-feasibility-study-plan-for-medicinal-marijuana

How Nepalis’ vulnerability grows amid changing nature of cyber crimes

While the organised sector is impacted by cyber attacks, the effect of hackers on individuals is no less significant.

ANUP OJHA

Cyber crimes have become a global, borderless phenomena. The rapid growth of internet connectivity and information technology has created ample opportunities for criminals. Nepal too is at a high risk of cyber crimes as the country does not have proper legal procedures to address the ever-evolving cyber crimes. In the past few years the country has faced many security breaches on government websites; in late January, about 1,500 government websites were shut down.

The impact of cybercrimes on an individual level is still more alarming. According to the Bhotahity-based cyber bureau of Nepal Police, in the past four years a total of 16,190 complaints have been lodged. It gets an average of 60 to 70 complaints a day, the majority of them related to the hacking of email, social media passwords and other general issues. Officials at the bureau say they are struggling to tackle complex cyber cases without the aid of specialised technical analysis as well as certified experts.

Here is what you need to know about the changing trend of cyber crimes in Nepal:

What are cyber crimes?

Cyber crimes refer to criminal activities that are done with the help of computers, the internet and digital technologies. These include activities like digital identity theft, hacking, cyberstalking, cyberbullying, phishing and other forms of fraud with the use of the internet and electronic devices. They have emerged as a new challenge to the economy, security, social harmony as well as individual well-being.

According to Statista, an online platform specialised in market and consumer data which offers statistics and reports, as of January this year, there were 5.16 billion internet users worldwide, which is 64.4 percent of the global population. Cybercrime statistics show that by 2022, a minimum of 422 million individuals had been impacted.

The internet and new technologies have made peoples’ lives easier. However, they have also brought many negative consequences due to weak cybersecurity measures and lax law enforcement. As technology continues to advance, cyber crimes are likely to be a more persistent threat.

Recently, cyberspace has also been used for geo-political attacks. The recent distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Nepal’s websites has mostly been used in geo-political conflicts, notably in the Russian-Ukraine war. Netscout, a US-based cybersecurity company, reported over six million DDoS attacks in the first half of 2022, most of which corresponded with national or regional tensions. DDoS attacks in Finland increased by 258 percent year-on-year in response to its announcement to apply for NATO membership.

Nepal’s National Information Technology Centre (NITC) reported that no data was compromised in the recent attack but given the gravity of DDoS attacks, experts highlight the necessity of thorough digital forensic examinations. As per the Global Cybersecurity Index, which measures the commitments of countries to assess legal, technical, and organisational measures, and capacity development and cooperation, Nepal moved up to the 94th position in 2020 from 106th in 2018. But the country’s overall score remains low at 44.99 (out of 100 points) among 182 countries indexed.

How have cyber crimes evolved in Nepal?

Initially, they started with cases of email and SMS blackmails. But as social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Skype and LinkedIn became popular, people with criminal mindsets were encouraged to target governments, institutions and individuals.

In January 2017, Nepal saw one of the biggest breaches of the government computer systems, with as many as 58 government websites hacked by a group called “Paradox CyberGhost”. Just two years ago the official website of the President of Nepal was also hacked. And the most recent attack was in Singha Durbar. In late January, about 1,500 government websites were shut, which also affected flights from the Tribhuvan International Airport, raising questions over Nepal’s cybersecurity infrastructure.

Meanwhile, in the past four years, the cyber bureau has recorded 16,190 cases of cyber crimes under different categories like online financial fraud, revenge porn, ransomware attack, defamation, hacking, unauthorised access, among others.

The bureau’s data shows that in the fiscal year 2019-2020 there were only 2,301 cases of cyber crimes lodged. This fiscal year, the number has increased three-fold, to 6,297.

“The number of cyber crimes is steadily inching up, and we are struggling to address all complaints,” said Pashupati Kumar Ray, the bureau’s spokesperson.

Most recorded cybercrimes in Nepal in the past four years are linked to Facebook (4,730), followed by Tik-Tok (447), Instagram (434) and WhatsApp (181). Other platforms such as Twitter, Viber, IMO, and digital wallets are also used by digital fraudsters. Website and email hacking have also become headaches for the victims and the police.

Emerging trends in Nepal

According to the bureau’s data for the past eight months, IT-related financial frauds were the most common cybercrimes. At 955, financial frauds made up 20 percent of the total online crimes in the country, followed by 901 cases of revenge porn, according to Ray. Financial crimes include phishing (attempting to acquire sensitive data such as bank account numbers under a guise), lottery scam including fraudulent offers of work from home and online shopping.

Cases of fake profiles on social media come third, with 898 complaints registered. There were 799 complaints for online blackmailing, and 700 cases of online defamation aimed at assassinating the complainant’s character. In the same period, 648 cases of online harassment and 36 cases of online child sexual abuse were filed.

Why are more Nepalis being targeted?

Cyber crime and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) experts say many people are victimised mainly because they are not literate about cyber security or lack digital awareness. They pointed out Nepalis’ negligence to adopt security measures as another reason.

Cyber security expert Vivek Rana said the youths in the IT sector who used to outsource work are now jobless. They are now looking to make some quick bucks. “We also don’t have cyber regulations and laws to punish offenders. Most of all, the carefree nature of Nepali internet users is to blame.”

Besides that, the lure of easy money has led Nepalis into the traps of online fraudsters.

Who is more vulnerable?

According to cyber bureau, of the total complaints in the past eight months, 36 were of online child sexual abuse.

“Children are more vulnerable because we have found many predators grooming children through online gaming, gifts, and then abusing or exploiting them in some way,” said bureau spokesperson Ray.

There were 38.38 million internet subscribers in the country as of mid-October 2022, according to the Nepal Telecommunications Authority. Internet penetration in the country has now reached far and wide.

Rana says teenagers in rural parts of the country, plus elderly people, are more vulnerable. Many elderly people use mobile phones without understanding the implications of random clicks. The same is true of children. This is why cyber criminals often prey on them.

“They don’t know much about digital safety. Most of the elderly people share their one time passport [OTP], which is a dangerous practice,” said Rana.

Nepal’s laws and manpower

The country has the Electronic Transaction Act, 2008 as its cyber law. But due to lack of necessary amendments, it fails to cover the ever-evolving cyber crimes or to add to the security of a country’s online infrastructure. The Cybercrime Act-2018 is yet to see the light of the day. With weak laws on online security, Nepal’s cyberspace has become a gold mine for innovative hackers.

Although the government in the first week of March formed a high-level panel to draft a cyber security policy, no one knows when the panel will start working.

What is the way ahead?

Cyber experts say the best way out is to make people digitally aware, for which the government should play a proactive role. ICT expert Satish Krishna Kharel said there should be a nationwide awareness campaign to check the rise in cybercrimes.

He says awareness should start from schools, while the government should also train and mobilise digital forensic experts in all the seven provinces to prevent large-scale cybercrimes.

Experts further stress the need to give jurisdiction over cybercrimes to all district courts. Plus, all district police offices should have at least a small unit to handle cases of cyber crime locally.

Rana says the banking service providers and digital wallets should adopt and implement online fraud management systems to decrease the risk of financial cybercrimes.

Similarly, the focus should be on creating opportunities for adept ethical hackers who can keep abreast of current evolutions in cybercrimes.

https://kathmandupost.com/national/2023/05/14/how-nepalis-vulnerability-grows-amid-changing-nature-of-cyber-crimes

Cybercrime-related cases see an alarming rise

The data showed that this year, IT-related financial frauds were the most common cybercrime followed by cases of revenge porn.

ANUP OJHA

Six months ago, a 40-year-old man from Pokhara with ‘Rana’ surname got a message on WhatsApp. It offered him a chance to be a billionaire.

The message said one ‘Alex Clork Rana’ had died in Canada a few years ago, and there was no one to claim his $78 million lying in the Royal Bank of Canada.

The message urged the receiver to withdraw the huge sum, while congratulating him on his good fortune to be bequeathed a fortune. Rana, who owned a small business in Pokhara, was taken into confidence by the messenger, who further told him that he could easily give evidence to the bank of the Pokhara man’s link to Alex Clork Rana. The bank would then hand over the money to him as soon as the verification formalities were completed.

Initially, Rana was asked to send $1,500 in order to hire a lawyer for the purpose. Then, on various other pretexts, he was made to send large sums to 11 different individual bank accounts.

“When he lodged a complaint to us on March 7, he had already sent

$78,000 [equivalent to around Rs 10.2 million] to the fraud from different bank accounts, all from Pokhara,” said Senior Superintendent of Police Pashupati Kumar Ray, also the spokesperson at Cyber Bureau, based in Bhotahity.

He said the case is currently under investigation at the bureau office.

***

In a similar case, on March 12, another man in his early thirties with Shrestha surname from Kathmandu got a message from Canada via Facebook messenger, requesting him to claim $500 million, as soon as possible.

In the message, it was mentioned that a man with Shrestha surname had died in the 2016 Russia plane crash. The deceased’s $500 million was frozen in a Canadian bank and nobody was claiming the money from Nepal.

Shrestha was asked to come to Thailand to collect the amount with his identification documents. But before he proceeded, he chose to contact the cyber bureau.

“We were able to stop him from sending money after he came to our bureau to inquire about it,” said spokesperson Ray.

“But the problem is that when they get such messages, people get excited and transfer money without giving it a second thought.”

***

In October, another man Suraj Bhandari (name changed) got a message on Facebook messenger that said he had won Rs 2.5 million in a lottery. He was asked to contact an agent in India for further details.

To withdraw the amount, he was asked to pay Rs75,000, in three instalments from three different banks, and Bhandari did. After he was asked to pay a final Rs100,000 instalment to get the promised sum, he went to a fortune teller with his wife to inquire if he would really get the total amount or the money he had transferred so far had gone to waste.

“When he came with his wife, he had already paid Rs 75,000, and over the past one month, more than eight people had come to me with such fraudulent lottery cases,” said Arjun Adhikari, 58, a practising priest who also works as a fortune teller from his home in Balaju, Kathmandu.

Adhikari said that most victims came to him to inquire if he/she had the luck to win a lottery this year while also informing him of the lottery messages. “I told them that it was a scam,” Adhikari told the Post over the phone.

He admitted that he himself had gotten fraudulent lottery messages several times, but he had just ignored them all.

These anecdotes show how new-age fraudsters are duping gullible Nepalis.

Officials at the cyber bureau said that they get nearly a dozen such cases every single day.

“Many are aware of such scams, but some easily believe them and fall into a trap,” said Ray. He said being a little cynical can save people from falling victims to such scams.

Ray referred to Rana’s case. “If only he had used common sense, he could have saved himself from being defrauded of such a big amount,” said Ray. “You can see how easily he had been sending money from different banks to Nepali account holders’ names, before he came to us.”

According to cyber bureau data, in the past eight months, financial frauds committed online topped the list of cybercrimes in the country, followed by ‘revenge porn’ and fake profiles on social media.

Data shows that out of the total 4,937 cases registered with the bureau until April first week, there were 955 cases of financial frauds, which comes to about 20 percent of the total online crimes committed in the country. In the same period, there were 901 and 898 registered cases of revenge porn and fake profiles, respectively.

“Only a few of them who get duped come here. Many do not even complain,” said Ray.

Meanwhile, Senior Superintendent of Police Nabindra Aryal, who is also the chief of the cyber bureau, said the bureau is having difficulties in acting on such types of crimes as they are being committed outside of the country.

He said in such cases the bureau often seeks help from the Interpol.

“As we don’t have Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties and a legal framework to deal with such issues, it’s really difficult for us,” said Aryal.

He said even well educated people are being victimised through online phishing scams.

Aryal said the online scams mainly take place through social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram or through web sites such as Google and Yahoo!, whose central offices are located outside the country.

“This has been adding complications in our work,” said Aryal.

Sociologists say many people these days want to make big bucks without putting in the hard work.

“People think there are easy ways of making a lot of money. This belief often lands them in trouble,” said Guman Singh Khatri, an assistant professor at the Central Department of Sociology at Tribhuvan University.

He said the state and the media should better educate people on new kinds of cybercrimes.

Published at : April 16, 2023

https://kathmandupost.com/national/2023/04/25/lure-of-easy-money-leads-nepalis-into-traps-of-online-fraudsters

TikTok Live being used to lure clients for sex massage

Spa operators say just around three dozens of around 400 centres in Kathmandu Valley offer ethical services for mental and physical wellness. The rest are into shady business.

Nepali public questions rationale of national ID card

Launched to integrate multiple documents, it may be long before the card replaces the citizenship certificate.

ANUP OJHA

Three years ago, Bharat Pokharel had to stand in a queue for eight hours to get his hands on it.

Pokharel, 27, had to go back home with sore legs after obtaining his national identity card from the Narayanhiti Palace-based Department of National ID Card and Civil Registration Office, at a time the country was reeling under the Covid-19 pandemic.

A resident of Shankhamul, Kathmandu, Pokharel had applied for the card after the government promised to provide all its services through the common card, and it was also made mandatory for getting a passport. Like most Nepali youths, he aspired to go abroad.

The national ID is a federal identity card issued by the Department of National ID and Civil Registration with a unique number assigned to each person. The cards can be obtained by the citizens of Nepal based on their biometric and demographic data. It features a unique number, photo, personal information and the fingerprints of the bearer.

Later, Pokharel abandoned the idea of going abroad, and started preparing for the Public Service Commission examinations.

“Now I feel like there was no need to rush to get the card as officials at the Public Service Commission would not accept it in lieu of my citizenship certificate,” said Pokharel, whom the Post met on the commission premises in Anamnagar on Tuesday.

Pokharel has an MSc in botany from the Tribhuvan University and is planning to apply for a gazetted second class officer position.

But dozens of youths who had come to the commission to apply for government jobs had brought along their citizenship certificates as the commission does not recognise the national ID card.

When the Post contacted Madhav Prasad Regmi, the PSC chair, and asked why his office does not accept the national ID and insists on presenting a citizenship certificate, he said they were just following the law, which makes the citizenship certificate mandatory for applying for government jobs.

“There is no mention of the national ID card in the law, so we only accept citizenship certificates,” said Regmi.

And it is not only the PSC. Other government agencies such as the Department of Transport Management and its subordinate offices, and even local ward offices that thousands visit every day also don’t recognise the national ID card as a replacement for citizenship certificates.

“Our law doesn’t recognise national ID cards, so it is mandatory for service seekers to submit a copy of their citizenship certificates,” said Ishwari Dutta Paneru, information officer at the Department of Transport Management at Minbhawan, Kathmandu.

Bimal Kumar Hoda, chair of ward number 7 of Kathmandu Metropolitan City, echoes Paneru. “We will start accepting national ID cards only after everyone in our ward obtains them,” Hoda told the Post. “But for now there is no alternative to the citizenship certificate.”

The government had officially launched the national ID distribution campaign in 2018 by presenting a card to a 101-year-old woman in Panchthar district, and to government employees at Singha Durbar, the central secretariat. It announced plans to digitally integrate the driver’s licence, vehicle ownership certificate, banking services, tax payment system, voter ID card social security system, among other things, in the card. But even after five years since the launch, the card is not required anywhere except while applying for a passport or sitting for a medical entrance exam.

On November 17, 2021, the Department of Passports started issuing e-passports and made the National ID card mandatory for all passport applicants. And the card was made mandatory only recently for medical entrance exams.

“There is no use of the national ID card except for obtaining a passport. And one has to go through unnecessary hassles to apply for it. I don’t know why the government decided to put the public through such trouble,” said Kiran Neupane, 22, from Lamjung, who recently applied for a new passport.

“I had to stand in a queue for hours to get my national ID. I don’t know why the card was made mandatory for passports when all other government offices ask for citizenship certificates,” said Neupane, a graduate student who is applying for a passport to go abroad for information technology studies.

In June last year, hundreds of people had queued for whole nights at the Narayanhiti Palace and District Administration Office Kathmandu in Babarmahal, to get their national ID cards and their ordeals had gone viral on social media.

The Department of National ID and Civil Registration has been touting the card as a digital solution to prevent duplication of voter registration and identity theft, and to maintain proper records of internal voters’ migration.

Former secretary Dwarika Nath Dhungel is among those who question the rationale of the new identification document. “I have my citizenship certificate. I also have a driver’s licence. Now why am I being compelled to obtain a national ID card? Are governments formed to make people suffer? Why can’t I get an e-passport based on my citizenship certificate?” Dhungel expressed his anger on Twitter.

According to the Department of National ID and Civil Registration under the Home Ministry, until now 133,000 cards have been distributed across Nepal, and more than 1.2 million cards have been printed. Officials said that the department has collected biometrics of 11.4 million people across the country from its 122 stations in 77 districts.

When asked why the government is yet to integrate various government services and identification documents with the national ID card, Krishna Paudel, an information officer at the department, said they are working on it.

“Currently, the main issue is to make the card mandatory by amending the laws concerned,” said Paudel.

Paudel added the department’s work has been hampered also because it does not have enough funds, and has been consulting the Home Ministry for the same. He said around Rs4 billion has so far been spent in distributing and storing the national ID data.

Meanwhile, department officials said it will cost around Rs20 billion to implement the national ID card project.

Paudel admitted that people are now unhappy with having to carry multiple documents despite having the national ID card. “But when we integrate all government services with the national ID card, things will be much easier,” said Paudel.

But digital integration is not simple. Among other things, cybersecurity experts have long been expressing concerns about the safety of sensitive personal data and its possible misuse.

Published at : March 23, 2023

https://kathmandupost.com/national/2023/03/23/nepali-public-questions-rationale-of-national-id-card

Once sold in Kuwait, she still lives in pain back home

Sanimaya’s tale represents countless Nepali women who are taken to various Gulf countries on visit visas and then are made to work in virtual slavery.

(Middle) Sanimaya at her parents’ in Pokhara. (Right) Marks on her right hand from injections to keep her drowsy in Kuwait. Photos obtained by the Post

ANUP OJHA

On May 10 last year, three days before the local elections, Sanimaya of Pokhara Metropolitan City ward-15 flew out of Nepal from the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) in the company of two dozen other women.

They were going to Dubai, the UAE, on a visit visa. But each of them was also given separate papers with visas for Kuwait, meticulously folded and wrapped up inside biscuit wrappers, and sealed with gum.

“From the outside, it looked like a packet of biscuits, but inside there was a separate document for Kuwait, and we had to keep it in our handbags,” said Sanimaya.

Thirty-five-year-old Sanimaya is a widowed mother of four: three daughters (aged 16, 17 and 21) and a son (15). She has been preoccupied with giving a good life to her children after losing her husband to a heart disease in 2020.

“After my husband’s death, I had sustained my family by doing manual labour,” she said.

Sanimaya was looking for a good source of income. It was then that one of her neighbours connected her to a manpower agent in Kathmandu.

But upon landing in Kuwait, she had to live a life which she calls a ‘hell,’ and says she survived only by sheer luck.

Sanimaya was rescued and brought back to Nepal five months ago, on October 2, and the torture and abuses she faced in Kuwait haunt her to this day. She asks other women not to be lured by offers of employment on a visit visa until they are good with the language and at least have some knowledge of the laws of the host countries.

Separately, the Post met Chameli at the Anti-Human Trafficking Bureau of the Nepal Police at Babarmahal on Monday.

She was there to collect her passport.

Chameli, 33, a mother of a 13-year-old son, was stopped by the bureau along with 19 other women last Friday as they were planning to fly from the TIA to Dubai on visit visas.

Chameli used to run a small eatery in Kirtipur, where she lives in a rented room. But when the Post met Chameli, now divorced, she was unhappy with the bureau’s decision and reluctant to talk.

“My sister-in-law who lives in Dubai is sponsoring me, it’s all above board. But the police did not allow me to go after I could not name the bank where I had deposited the money to fund my visit,” said Chameli. She said she didn’t have a clue about why the other women accompanying her were stopped.

She and a half-a-dozen other women who had come to the bureau on the day were rueing the money they spent on tickets, but more than that the shattering of their dream of earning a decent income abroad.

Sanimaya says she too dreamt big until she landed in Kuwait.

“If you are going for domestic work on a visit visa, you will be sold. You won’t earn money, and you won’t be able to come back to Nepal either,” said Sanimaya, who is now living with her 65-year-old mother in Nayagaun, Pokhara. Her father is 70.She says she has difficulty moving her hips, nor can she properly use her fingers.

Before Sanimaya actually got to Kuwait, she had little idea about the country: where it was and how far from her home. But another woman in her neighbourhood convinced her that she would get to do domestic work in a safe environment in Kuwait, and would be saving Rs40,000 a month. She would also be entitled to free meals and accommodation. The woman even connected her with the manpower agent named Prakash Shahi Thakuri.

Struggling to properly bring up children on her own, she latched on to the opportunity.

At the time, the country’s security forces were largely focused on the impending elections, and that is why the agents who had initially arranged to fly Sanimaya and other women out of New Delhi changed their mind and decided to use the Tribhuvan International Airport instead.

“The agent had given each of us $250, and I showed this amount to the police at the airport. I had also been told that I should say that I was going to Dubai on a visit,” said Sanimaya.

In March last year, the Department of Immigration had issued a 17-point regulation to address visit visa-related issues, including provisions like the requirement of higher education and bank balance of Rs500,000 for women wanting to fly abroad for work.

At the airport, a woman police officer tried to question Sanimaya and others, but a heavyset man who was standing a few feet away signalled to the police officer to let the women go.

“We were surprised, nobody checked us and we were directly taken inside the plane,” said Sanimaya.

Sanimaya, who is illiterate, said at one transit she was told by her agent to tear all the Dubai-related documents and throw them in a dustbin.

“Then, I was to show the biscuit-cover-wrapped document related to Kuwait that was hidden in my handbag,” she said.

Sanimaya along with two dozen other women were directly flown to Kuwait and taken to a hotel that was an hour and a half away by bus. After they had their meals, they were herded into an empty room with chairs under strict CCTV surveillance.

“We were kept like goats for sale, and rich Kuwaiti people would come and pick us up,” she said.

On the first day, only half a dozen girls were sold, while the ‘unsold’ Sanimaya and other ladies were kept in a poorly-lit room.

On the fifth day, one businessman bought Sanimaya. “They preferred slim girls, and as my physique was quite lean, I was chosen,” said Sanimaya.

She said she was sold for $900 for two years. The businessman took her home where she had to clean the house, wash clothes and work in the kitchen. But after a week, the businessman took her back to the same place, and another rich man bought her.

That was when her hardships really started. The second Kuwaiti man who took her home forced her to work for 20 hours a day.

“In a single day, I had to work in three different houses, and in one house I had to look after four other children including one mentally ill. It was a daunting task,” said Sanimaya.

She worked a minimum of six hours at one house, before being taken to another, and then to the next. “They would come to pick me up in a car and ferry me around houses, making me work continuously, without even bothering to ask if I had eaten properly or had a night’s sleep,” she shared.

She would be confined in sky-scrapers and their big compounds, and she would only see the road outside, and sometimes a passing car when she went out to dispose of household garbage.

But her hardships didn’t end there. After working for two months, one of the house owners left for the UK for cancer treatment, and that’s when the owner’s sons, who were 15 and 18, abused her. The house lady’s mother-in-law became more intolerant towards Sanimaya.

“One day, when I was working, those boys tried to sexually abuse me. I tried to retaliate but they hit me with sticks,” said Sanimaya. As she was not given proper food to eat, she could not work and started having a severe headache.

Sanimaya was then taken to the Farwaniya Hospital, with the consent of an agent through whom she was sold.

“The agent who had sold me for $900 for two years tried to take away my kidney, perhaps because the money had to be paid back to my owners,” said Sanimaya. If she ran from home, the house owner could file a complaint of theft.

Sanimaya said she was given multiple injections at the hospital, in her arms and her thighs.

“I had a headache, but they kept on giving injections, trying to make me drowsy. Once, when a doctor was trying to forcefully inject me, I shouted, I started crying, telling them that I wanted to go back to my country, Nepal,” said Sanimaya.

Sanimaya says that she had taken her cellphone to the hospital and would take pictures and videos of her hospital room. She even managed to call her Nepali agent, Prakash Thakuri, but he asked for Rs500,000 to arrange for her return to Nepal.

“There was no way I could have given him so much money,” said Sanimaya.

Nobody understood Nepali at the hospital, and she had no one to talk to.

But once, when she was crying, another Nepali woman who worked at the hospital as a cleaner heard her from outside the room. The worker then advised that Sanimaya should run away as a plan was being hatched to remove one of her kidneys.

“She was a godsend,” Sanimaya said. “Her face was covered in a burka, and she said that I should get out of the hospital at any cost. She even suggested a way to escape from that big hospital.”

She had been in Farwaniya Hospital for five days when she made an escape plan.

“At 3pm, all attending doctors had to go register their attendance. At that time, I somehow managed to get a cleaner’s dress and was able to reach one of the hospital’s elevators,” she said. “A Bengali person who I met in the elevator gave me the exact location of the exit.”

From the hospital she boarded a taxi and reached the Embassy of Nepal in Al-Jabriya, Kuwait City.

“I was too weak. The Nepali employees at the embassy scolded me for coming there by running away from a hospital. But when I explained that my life was in danger, they were more sympathetic and agreed to help me,” said Sanimaya.

She was rescued on October 2, the day of Phulpati, the seventh day of Dashain festival.

That was not the end of her ordeal.

Back home, she was shunned by her family members.

“I had flown out to secure my children’s future, but my in-laws accused me of eloping after their son’s death,” said Sanimaya, who now lives at her maternal home in Pokhara with her parents. She has not been able to meet her children since returning to Nepal.

Recently, after she lodged a complaint at the anti-human trafficking bureau, it nabbed Prakash Shahi Thakuri aka Prakash Dhimal from Kathmandu on January 23. He is now in judicial custody.

Sanimaya is one of countless women who face similar hardships in Gulf countries after going there through informal channels.

“I don’t know what happened to most of those other cheerful women who had flown with me, and who were sold like goats,” Sanumaya said. “A few of them still connect with me over TikTok, saying that they seldom get enough food, are made to work all the time and are constantly tortured.”

Yet the great exodus of Nepali women on visit visas continues unabated.

Senior Superintendent Jeevan Kumar Shrestha, chief at the anti-trafficking bureau, said the women who are trafficked on visit visas are mostly illiterate, poor and divorced.

The bureau’s data show that in the past two months, 568 women who had been to the TIA to fly to the Gulf on visit visas were intercepted. He said these women were being taken to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Oman as domestic workers on fraudulent documents.

“Basically, traffickers look for poor, illiterate and divorced or widowed women and lure them with free visas, tickets, transport and accommodation,” Shrestha said.

Unable to make enough to sustain their families, countless women are still determined to leave on the perilous journey—at any cost.

Only last week, the bureau intercepted 40 women from the TIA as they were ready to fly to various Gulf countries on tourist visas. But when these women are brought to the bureau for orientation, they invariably get angry at the police officers for trying to shatter their dreams.

Sanimaya has a message for them.

“If somebody offers to take you somewhere in the Gulf free of cost on a visit visa with a promise of a decent job, then it’s a scam, a trap,” she said. “Don’t fall for it. Or you will regret the decision for the rest of your life.”

The names of some respondents have been changed to protect their privacy.

Published in: The Kathmandu Post

Published at : March 15, 2023

https://kathmandupost.com/national/2023/03/15/once-sold-in-kuwait-she-still-lives-in-pain-back-home

KMC signs law students for free legal help at wards

ANUP OJHA

The City will pay Rs15,000 a month to each student for their services. As per the agreement, the pilot exercise will end in mid-June.

Officials said senior citizens and people with disabilities will get priority for such services.

All 50 law students were given a one-day orientation last week to familiarise them with local issues and ways to resolve local problems such as family disputes. Other help these law students will provide include lodging complaints of violence against women, sexual violence, and cases related to land encroachment, building map issues, and legal consultations.

Speaking at the orientation last week, Deputy Mayor Dangol, head of the judicial committee, said cooperation and coordination with the Nepal Law Campus will help the City to speed up justice delivery at the grassroots level.

“Justice delayed is justice denied,” Dangol said, addressing attendees. “When multiple disputes in the metropolis make it to the City office, it can’t resolve all of them even if it wants to. I believe all of you will facilitate this drive that aims to speed up justice delivery in each ward.”

The Nepal Law Campus has also welcomed the drive that it believes will help train its students on the field. DN Parajuli, the campus head, said a new avenue had been opened for students to practise law at the local level, and it would enhance their practical knowledge which in turn is essential for them to be good lawyers.

“I would call it localisation of the justice system,” Parajuli said. “If you look at medical students, they are sent to hospitals to practise medicine. Likewise, it is important for law students to practise law. The City’s approach is thus commendable.”

Parajuli added that senior law students and professors will help on-field trainees crack complex cases.

Parajuli said although localisation of the justice system is common in countries like the United States and Indonesia, this is a new practice in Nepal.

After KMC’s initiative, other local bodies in the Valley are also approaching the campus for similar collaborations, Parajuli said.

“We are in the trial phase, and I am sure this is going to succeed,” he said. “But we will tie up with other local units only after the trial period with the KMC ends.”

Published in: The Kathmandu Post

Published at : March 9, 2023

https://kathmandupost.com/kathmandu/2023/03/09/kmc-signs-law-students-for-free-legal-help-at-wards

Indians top list of foreigners arrested in Nepal, followed by Chinese

Most common crimes involving foreigners are drugs smuggling, gold smuggling, forgery, sexual abuses, paedophilia and human trafficking, police data show.

ANUP OJHA

On February 25, the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB), in coordination with the Metropolitan Police Range, Lalitpur arrested Chinese national Yang Limping, 49, from Bungmati.

Yang, a permanent resident of Xiamen in China’s Fujian province was arrested on the charge of holding three girls aged 13, 14 and 17 hostage and sexually abusing them in his rented apartment at Bungamati in Lalitpur. All three were rescued. Police also rescued four other minors whom Yang had kept at a Thamel-based hotel on the same day.

Police hunted down the Chinese national after the mother of one of the hostages filed a missing persons complaint at the Area Police Station in Urlabari, Jhapa.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Siddhi Bikram Shah, who is also the in-charge of the District Police Office, Lalitpur, said a case has been filed at the Lalitpur District Court against the Chinese for raping a minor.

Yang’s is just the latest case in a series of crimes involving Chinese nationals. A few months ago, on December 22, the Anti-Human Trafficking Bureau of the Nepal Police nabbed two Chinese agents—Chen Yang, 30, a permanent resident of Sichuan, China from Kathmandu’s Thamel area, and Ruan Chaohong, 33, of Fujian, from the Tribhuvan International Airport.

They were arrested on the charge of trafficking three Nepali women to a Laos-based call centre involved in catfishing—swindling rich people online by befriending them using a fake identity. The victims said their job was to lure rich English-speaking people online. After escaping their Chinese employer in Laos, three Nepali women had shared their harrowing tale with the Post.

Currently, the two Chinese are at the Central Jail, Sundhara as they are being investigated for human trafficking, according to the Anti-Human Trafficking Bureau Babarmahal.

Every year, dozens of foreigners are arrested in Nepal for their alleged involvement in various crimes.

According to the Nepal Police Headquarters, 92 foreign nationals from at least 20 countries have been charged with various criminal activities this fiscal year alone. Police have lodged cases against 27 Indian citizens and 22 Chinese among others this year.

Police say the number of Indian nationals involved in crimes in Nepal could be more compared to the Chinese, but the former escape arrest in many cases owing to the open border and taking advantage of linguistic and cultural similarities.

“But among third country nationals, more Chinese are being arrested for their involvement in criminal activities here,” said Senior Superintendent of Police Dipendra GC, co-spokesman at Nepal Police Headquarters in Naxal.

Also, records at Nepal Police Headquarters show that compared to Indian nationals, Chinese are involved in more serious crimes such as murder and organised crimes. Police have this year filed murder cases against two Chinese, while there are no such cases against other foreign nationals.

This fiscal year’s police data show Indian nationals top the list of foreigners arrested for their involvement in criminal activities followed by Chinese nationals. Of the total 27 Indians arrested this fiscal year, 13 have been charged with customs evasion, and five with dealing in counterfeit currency. Other crimes involving Indian nationals are dealing in contraband drugs, extortion, kidnapping, and forgery, among others.

Likewise, a total of 22 Chinese nationals were arrested for various crimes this year—two have been charged with murder, eight with smuggling in contraband drugs, five with organised crimes, one with rape, one with hostage-taking, three have been charged with misbehaviour, and two with overstaying the visa.

Thai nationals came third with five arrested for drug smuggling and one for dealing in counterfeit currency this year.

In total, police have charged a total of 92 cases against the citizens of 20 countries this fiscal year.

In the last fiscal year 2021-22, police arrested a total of 108 foreigners from 41 countries. Among them, 31, the largest number, were Indians, followed by 16 Chinese and 13 Bangladeshis.

Likewise, in 2020-2021, a total of 30 foreigners from 14 various countries were arrested. The crimes they were charged with included smuggling, forgery, sexual abuse, and human trafficking. One American and one French national were arrested on paedophilia charges.

“Those were pandemic years, so there was very less mobility of foreigners. But compared to other countries that needed visas to visit Nepal, the number of Chinese citizens involved in crime was higher in 2020-21,” said GC.

Police officials said most common crimes involving foreigners are drugs smuggling, gold smuggling, forgery, sexual abuses, paedophilia and human trafficking.

And with Indians customs evasion is the most common crime.

Interestingly, police data point out that the number of Chinese nationals committing crimes in Nepal has been increasing markedly in recent years.

Last year, police raided a call centre at Tinkune run jointly by a Chinese and an Indian citizen.

In January 2019, police had arrested 122 Chinese nationals from different parts of Kathmandu for their alleged involvement in suspicious activities. In September of the same year, police had arrested five Chinese nationals on the charge of hacking bank data and stealing millions of rupees from automated teller machines (ATMs) of various banks in Kathmandu. 

Published in: The Kathmandu Post

Published at : March 11, 2023

https://kathmandupost.com/national/2023/03/11/indians-top-list-of-foreigners-arrested-in-nepal-followed-by-chinese