Prateek Thapa, the accused in the fake Bhutanese refugee case, was arrested

According to Acting Inspector General of Police (AIG) Deepak Thapa, Pratik was arrested from Buddh on Friday. Prateek is the son of Ram Bahadur Thapa, former Home Minister and CPN-UML Vice President.

Last year, the public prosecutor's office in Kathmandu placed Thapa on the fugitive list and filed a case in the court against those involved in the crime of sending Nepalese as fake Bhutanese refugees to America. When Babu Ram Bahadur Thapa was the Minister of Home Affairs, it was revealed by the investigation that Prateek, along with middlemen and employees of the Ministry of Home Affairs, ran extortion rackets in refugee cases.

In March 2079, Thapa was on the run after some accused in the refugee case were arrested. Prateek issued a press release on 21 Baisakh 2080 and said that he was not involved in it and would help the investigation . But he was absconding during the police investigation. Then the police issued an arrest warrant against him on 31st of Baisakh 080.

After Indrajit Rai, the security adviser of the then Home Minister Thapa, was arrested in this case, the needle of the investigation was also pointed towards Prateek . In this case, former Deputy Prime Minister and UML Secretary Top Bahadur Rayamazhi, then Home Minister Balkrishna Khan, incumbent Secretary Teknarayan Pandey, Prateek Thapa, middlemen Keshav Dulal, Sanu Bhandari, Sandesh Sharma and 30 others were charged with 4 offenses including crime against the state, fraud, organized crime and conspiracy on 10 June 2018. A case was filed. Among them, only 18 people were arrested and the rest were absconding. It was said that Pratik, who was absconding, had fled abroad immediately.

It was revealed during the investigation that Prateek took 1 crore rupees from a middleman to help send Nepalese refugees to America.

In this case, the district court of Kathmandu released two people on bail and sent the remaining 16 people to prison for pre-trial detention. The Patan High Court released 9 people on bail, including former Home Minister Khan, and upheld the order of the rest of the district. 7 people also appealed to the Supreme Court against the order of the Supreme Court, after the Supreme Court upheld the order of the Supreme Court, former Deputy Prime Minister Rayamazhi, Secretary Pandey (currently suspended), middleman Dulal, Bhandari were ordered to be sent to the Central Jail until the end of the case.