During the protests on Bhadra 24, foreign prisoners, from murder accused 'sharpshooters' to gold smugglers and 'serial killers', have escaped. The Prisons Department has stated that 825 foreign prisoners from countries including India and China have escaped. Of these, 206 have returned, while 520 Indians and 99 from other countries are still at large.

According to the department, the most common foreign prisoners who escape are those involved in drug-related crimes. However, the escape of foreign prisoners involved in organized and transnational crimes has become a headache for the Nepal Police. One of the escapees is Indian 'sharpshooter' Guddu Patel. Patel, an accused in the Lal Mohammad murder case, who is accused of dealing in fake currency notes while in Nepal, escaped from the Central Jail, Sundhara. He was arrested by the Nepal Police after being shot in the chest. 

Patel was arrested by the Nepal Police from Lucknow, India, after a long effort. It is rare for a shooter to be arrested from across the border in a series of mysterious murders in Nepal on charges of activities against India. Moreover, such accused involved in planning murders had not been caught in previous cases. The Nepal Police had arrested Guddu from India in the Mohammad murder case. 

According to officials, he was a professional hitman (a person who hires a gang to kill for a certain amount of money) from Raxaul, Bihar, India. His relationship with Indian underworld don Babbu Srivastava was also seen. In the past, Srivastava and another Indian don Chhota Rajan have been implicated in the murders of people in Nepal on charges of working for the ISI in Nepal. 

‘Guddu could use the weapon without missing the target by asking which eye to shoot, right or left, the fact that a criminal of that level is absconding has increased the security challenge,’ says an officer involved in organized crime investigation, ‘Now the investigating officers are in panic.’ Even when he was shot in the back, he threatened the police by saying ‘Yeh tik nahi hua (This was not right)’, according to officials. 

Mohammad, who was killed in Gothatar on 4 Asoj 2079, was claimed by the Indian side to be an agent of the Pakistani intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). According to officers of the Special Bureau of the Nepal Police, the counter-terrorism agency, the Indian side had been informally requesting him to be handed over on charges of being involved in counterfeit currency trading. After killing such people and fleeing, the group including Guddu had been living in a shelter in Lucknow, India. 

Guddu's friend Bablu Paswan was also shot and arrested by the Birgunj police on 16 Baisakh 2081. After the Nepal Police made him public, the police set of the Indian district bordering Birgunj was changed, according to investigation officers. According to security sources, Paswan, who was in the Birgunj jail, had also tried to escape from the jail. However, since the Nepal Army had also been mobilized, many prisoners were unable to escape from there.

Guddu, however, used to walk on crutches inside the central jail due to being shot. ‘It seems that he left almost at the last moment when he escaped from the prison,’ said a security officer of the central prison, ‘after that he was found to have reached the bus park directly.’ 

Not only Guddu, but also the leader of a gang involved in drug smuggling living in the Nepal-India border area has escaped from the prison. Sadiq Alam and Hemant Bhagwat of Islampur-11, West Bengal, India, who were caught by the Narcotics Control Bureau in a shootout, have escaped. According to the bureau’s chief Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Krishna Koirala, a drug dealer, Sadiq was hit by a bullet in his left leg. 

At that time, a group of four people including him attacked the police with iron rods, in which two policemen were injured and four rounds of air and three rounds of bullets were fired in self-defense, Koirala said. At that time, Alam’s friend, 22-year-old Mohammad Manjur Alam, was also hit by two bullets in the left leg. The District Court, Kathmandu, had ordered them to be remanded in custody for trial on 27 August 2005.

Another fugitive drug dealer, Hemant Bhagwat, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and a fine of Rs 100,000 by the court. He was arrested by the Bureau on 28 Jestha 2002. It is suspected that both the accused have fled and reached India. According to an officer deployed in the operation from the Bureau, it may take years to catch the number of drug dealers who escaped on 24 Bhadra.

Director of the Prison Management Department, Chomeendra Neupane, also said that the largest number of prisoners in the prison are on drug charges and that most of the escapees are also on the same charges. Citizens of Bolivia, Brazil, Zimbabwe, Ukraine, Pakistan, Malaysia, Thailand and South Africa are also absconding in drug trafficking cases.

Most of the accused in the 61 kg gold smuggling case seized on 27 August 2001 outside the customs of Tribhuvan International Airport have also been absconding since 24 Bhadra. One of the ringleaders of the case, Belgian citizen Nima Tamang alias Dawa Tshering, has been out of contact. He was married to Amala Roka, a Maoist leader from Rolpa. Due to the same relationship, he had also expanded his reach to Maoist leaders.

 For this reason, during the investigation of this case, there was a demand to investigate the involvement of some Maoist leaders. The others who are absconding are Yao Pucheng alias Alex, Li Wen Chung, Yang Wen, Saute Dingsengfa, and Li Nangkai alias Roger, who are also involved in the same case. 

Indian serial killer Rais Mian has also escaped from prison. He was the most wanted person for a long time and was accused of killing 7 people. Saptari police arrested him in 2073 Bhadra after a long effort. After his arrest, it was revealed that Rais had also obtained Nepali citizenship from the former Saraswar VDC-7 of Saptari. 

According to retired Additional Inspector General (AIG) Hari Bahadur Pal, who was the head of the Special Bureau of the Nepal Police, the escape of criminals involved in heinous crimes not only increases fear in the society but can also make the investigation officers themselves unsafe. ‘In this case, in the case of the accused from the southern neighbor, coordination should be done with the Indian side to catch them again,’ he says. ‘In the case of the accused from other countries, diplomatic initiatives should be taken through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the support of the International Criminal Police Organization should be sought.’

Director General of the Prison Management Department, Leela Prasad Sharma, says that the embassies of the respective countries have been informed about the absconding foreign criminals. “A list of absconding accused has been prepared and sent to the Nepali missions abroad through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from there coordination is also being done with other embassies,” Sharma said. “A search is underway for accused from other countries besides India as they may be hiding in the border areas.”