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KATHMANDU, Jan 22: Amidst mystery surrounding her whereabouts for the past one week, Armed Police Force (AFP) Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Ranjan Koirala on Sunday confessed to the police that he killed his wife Gita Dhakal.
DIG Koirala, however, refused to divulge the details as to how he killed and what did he do with the slain body till late Sunday evening, according to police officials investigating the murder.
Talking briefly to media persons, Superintendent of Police (SP) Rajendra Shrestha, chief of Metropolitan Police Range Office, Kathmandu, said preliminary investigation has revealed that Koirala was directly involved in the murder. “Koirala has confessed to killing his wife,” he said.
A joint team of Metropolitan Police Crime Division and Metropolitan Police Range Office, Hanumandhoka, arrested Koirala Sunday morning from Nagdhunga, Thankot following a tip-off from intelligence sources. Koirala was on his way back to Kathmandu from Palung.
Sources said locals at Tistung rounded up Koirala and handed him over to the police on suspicion as he was found roaming alone in the site where a human carcass was found 10 days ago.
“It is learnt that Koirala was briefly detained by the police at Tistung but was released later after Koirala said that he had to go to Hetauda for his personal work,” said a police official at Metropolitan Police Crime Division (MPCD), Hanumandkhoka.
A police source at the MPCD, Hanumandkhoka, claimed Koirala could have gone to Palung to check if there was any connection between the dead body found by the police and his missing wife.
Local police had found a human carcass at Palung on January 12 and sent it to TU Teaching Hospital, Kathmandu, for post-mortem after locals informed to the police about a partially-burnt dead body. However, police is yet to recover the head and legs of slain Dhakal.
Dhakal, 38, had gone missing from her residence, Budhanilakantha, since January 11, drawing concerns from her close family and relatives about her whereabouts.
Though detained Koirala has refused to divulge the details as to how the slain body was transported to Palung, preliminary investigation has substantiated that Koirala took the dead body to a place called Metrang in Palung, Makawanpur, in his private car shortly after the murder on January 11.
“He took the dead body to Metrang on the same day he murdered her and burnt her body,” a police official involved in the investigation said.
Married in 1994, the couple had been living separately for more than six years following a bitter relationship. Their elder son, 14 -year-old, was living with Koirala while the younger son, who is 10 years old, was living with Dhakal.
What relatives say?
Slain Dhakal´s relatives have claimed that Koirala killed his wife to claim ownership of the house in Budhanilkantha. The house is registered in the name of Dhakal.
According to Dhakal´s aunt, Koirala went to Budhanilkantha and took his younger son along with him at around 10 am on January 11. Dhakal had called her mother immediately after Koirala came to her residence and took their son along with him. According to Dhakal´s housemaid, who lived next to the victim´s house, Dhakal was nowhere to be found when she went to her house at about 3:30 pm the same day. The housemaid was surprised to find that even her bedroom was locked.
According to the maid, a white car was seen at Gita´s residence at about 7:30 pm on January 11-- the day murder took place. "I couldn´t see anything clearly due to load shedding," Gita´s aunt quoted the maid as saying.
Concerns grew as Dhakal´s mother couldn´t get in touch with her when she tried to contact Dhakal over phone on December 12 and December 13.
As the relatives of Dhakal grew impatient and inquired about her whereabouts with her husband, accused Koirala himself had reportedly assured them that he would help locate her.
Family members of slain Dhakal said they had reached to Metropolitan Police Range Office, Maharajgunj on January 14 and registered a complaint. Police had then gone to Dhakal´s house and broken into the locked bedroom through the window.
Relatives had recovered an Indian mobile SIM card and a photograph of late Dhakal with a Punjabi guy when they opened the bedroom. Police found that a pillow cover was found missing and the bed-sheet was in a mess.
Police, however, had refused to register the complaint against Koirala citing lack of concrete evidence. “We did not register the kidnapping complaint as there was no concrete evidence to support the accusation,” said SP Shrestha.
However, the victim´s relatives alleged that police did not register the case as the accused was a DIG.
Meanwhile, Kathmandu District Court remanded Koirala to five-day in judicial custody for further investigation. Police had produced him before the court seeking Koirala´s detention for detailed investigation.
Who is Ranjan Koirala?
Born and raised in Baneshwar, Kathmandu, the arrested DIG of Armed Police Force Ranjan Koirala joined Nepal Police as an inspector in 1990.
He chose to join APF as SP after then government introduced a policy in 2001 to award promotion to those who voluntarily joined the newly-created force for containing the growing Maoist insurgency in the country. While still with the Nepal Police, Koirala served as a personal assistant to then Police Chief Achyut Krishna Kharel when he was a Deputy Superintendent of Police.
A son of senior bureaucrat at the Home Ministry, Koirala allegedly never hesitated to use his ´influence´ and ´power´.
His colleagues claimed that Koirala did not undergo mandatory four-month training on Weapons and Warfare Training given by Nepal Army to those joining APF. After joining the APF, Koirala went to the US on a three-year study leave. His relationship with his wife Geeta Dhakal had soured even before he left for the US and the couple was living separately .
Koirala had managed to get promotion even without undergoing mandatory Warfare Training as stipulated in the APF Regulations, allegedly, because of the special favors he received from then APF Chief Basu Dev Oli and some other senior APF Officials.
He was promoted to the post of DIG of APF in October, 2009. He had been pursuing National Defense Course in Beijing, China since September, 2011. The murder took place shortly after he came back to Nepal two weeks ago as there is public holiday in China to mark spring festival.
Koirala was also involved in student politics while pursuing his studies at Nepal Commerce Campus, Minbhawan, before he joined the police organization, according to his close friends.
He had contested the Free Students´ Union election as a candidate of Nepal Students´ Union affiliated to the Nepali Congress (NC). “He was daring but arrogant,” said a senior police official, who knows him personally. “I had not, however, expected that he would go to the extent of killing his wife who was living separately since past six years.” |
