Kathmandu, July 9 : Krishna Bahadur Raut, the Secretary of the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, has been arrested in the Lalita Niwas land scam case. The police took Raut under control on Sunday. Raut was arrested by a team of the Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police from Tribhuvan International Airport.

The information about the arrest of Secretary Raut was provided by the spokesperson of the CIAA, AIG Kiran Bajracharya. Raut had become the Secretary in the year 2078 BS (2021 AD).

During the decision to provide land compensation to fake Mohi under the name of expanding the Prime Minister’s residence under the leadership of Madhav Kumar Nepal’s government, Raut was an official in the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport. At that time, the Ministry had advanced the decision to provide the land to fake Mohi and mediator under the name of Samrajung Company. Raut, who was an official in the Department of Financial Administration, had raised concerns about the establishment of land compensation for fake Mohi and had met with the police investigation.

At that time, Vijay Kumar Gachhadar, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Physical Planning, and Sanjay Kumar Sah, State Minister, along with Deep Basnyat as Secretary, were present. Narayangopal Malego, the Deputy Secretary who was responsible for building-related matters in the Ministry, was also present to discuss the matter. Although Deputy Secretary Narhari Bhandari was given the responsibility to raise working notes, he did not participate, and therefore Raut was assigned the task. Raut raised working notes and the file was approved by the Minister from Secretary. After the proposal was approved by the Council of Ministers, the work of land acquisition for the land mafia’s plan was stopped.