Police have stated that the vehicle was stolen from Baireni, Dakshinkali-6, Kathmandu on Asoj 10 after the murder of 42-year-old Suresh Shrestha, a resident of Sindhupalchowk.
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On Wednesday afternoon, the traffic police were checking vehicles in Phidim. At that moment, a pickup jeep came from Ilam at high speed. It ignored the police's signal to stop and sped towards Hewa Khola.
The traffic police and the police accompanying them started chasing the driver after seeing his unusual behavior. There were three policemen on a pickup truck in front and two motorcycles behind. After reaching Salleri Bazaar, which is about 20 kilometers from Phidim, the pickup truck left the Mechi Highway and turned towards Subhang on a dirt road. From there, it left the road leading to Subhang and started descending towards Ekchepa.
After reaching Ekchepa School, the police who were chasing it returned to the district headquarters. As soon as they returned, news came that the pickup truck, which was moving from Salleri to Ekchepa via Tamor Corridor, had met with an accident and the driver had died.
Immediately after the accident, local and nearby public representatives came to the accident site, and the police also arrived shortly after. While checking inside the vehicle while preparing the incident report, the license plate number Ba7Cha 5449 and the blue book of the same vehicle were found, while the license plate attached to the outside of the vehicle had the vehicle number Na2Cha 1651 written on it.
After finding different numbers on the documents and the vehicle, the police confirmed during investigation that the vehicle involved in the accident was not 1561 but 5449. The initial investigation of the police revealed that the vehicle stolen from Baireni, Dakshinkali-6, Kathmandu on Asoj 24 belonged to Suresh Shrestha, 42, of Sindhupalchowk.
Shrestha was murdered on the night of Asoj 24 before the vehicle was stolen in Baireni. The police have stated that the stolen vehicle was being driven around various places and brought to Panchthar when it crashed.
DSP Anish Kumar Karna, Chief of the District Police Office, Panchthar, says that the chassis, engine and other evidence of the vehicle match the pickup stolen in the Kathmandu incident. The police investigation revealed that Shrestha, who was driving a pickup in Kathmandu, was murdered and the vehicle was stolen. The police had intensified the search for the vehicle after Shrestha's body was found murdered in Dukuchhap, Kirtipur, Kathmandu on Asoj 25.
The police were investigating who killed Shrestha, but they were not finding any evidence. The pickup met with an accident in Panchthar a week after the murder.
The police said that they were suspicious after the vehicle fled the scene instead of showing its documents during a routine check. “We thought something was wrong when the driver fled without showing his license and blue book, and that people who don’t make mistakes don’t run away like that,” DSP Karna said. The body of Lakpa Nurbu Sherpa was found in the accident. His driver’s license and some other documents were also found with him.
Sherpa, who lives in Phungling Municipality-9, Taplejung, was living in Kathmandu. DSP Karna said that during the investigation, it was revealed that he had called his father in Taplejung two days ago and said that he was coming with a new vehicle that he could use in the village.
The police have informed that the body of the deceased has been brought to Panchthar Hospital for postmortem and the investigation is underway. The CCTV footage of Shrestha being murdered and his car being stolen from Kathmandu has been going viral on social media for two days. At that time, the stolen car met with an accident in Panchthar.
