Arrest warrants have been issued against former Prime Minister and former Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba and former Foreign Minister Arju Rana Deuba. 

Two officials of the Kathmandu District Court told Kantipur that the arrest warrants were issued based on a letter from the Money Laundering Investigation Department. 'The bench of Judge Mahendra Bahadur Karki* granted the arrest warrant on Tuesday,' the source said. 

With this, the Deuba couple has been placed on the absconding list. The Deuba couple was being investigated for money laundering. 

According to a home source, the arrest warrants were issued against the Deuba couple to issue a red notice.  Red notices are issued through Interpol to arrest people abroad and bring them to Nepal.  The first formal step is the issuance of an arrest warrant. 

The government has launched a detailed investigation into the crime of money laundering against former Prime Ministers Deuba, KP Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal and former ministers Arju Rana Deuba and Deepak Khadka. Former Prime Minister Deuba, who was dragged into the investigation into money laundering, is abroad with his family . 

Deuba had gone to Singapore on Falgun 13. Before that, his wife Arju had reached Singapore via India . In the meantime, both of them had gone to Hong Kong for treatment  and returned to Singapore . After the Gen-G movement, on 10 Kartik, they had gone to Singapore for treatment .  Nepal is a member country of Interpol, the international police organization . If a person involved in a crime has fled his country to escape investigation and action and has gone abroad, the police of the concerned country can seek Interpol's help to bring such a person to justice .

Then, Interpol issues a red notice to search for the fugitive through affiliated countries and ‘circularizes’ it worldwide. However, a certain process must be completed for a red notice to be issued. According to a police officer involved in criminal investigation, after registering a crime in the crime register book against the fugitive, the investigating agency should issue an arrest warrant against such a person from the court. The arrest warrant has been issued against the Deuba couple to complete this process.

Interpol has a provision for the Inspector General of Police from Nepal to be an ex-officio member. In each country, Interpol makes the head of the police organization investigating crimes in that country the head of the ‘National Central Bureau’ (NCB). There is a provision that the NCB secretariat of the concerned country can request Interpol to issue various types of notices, including red notices, to search for the fugitive.

After examining the details of the letter with the request issued in this way, Interpol, if deemed necessary, issues a notice and circulates it to the NCB secretariats of all member countries to search for the absconding person.

Then the search for the person begins. If such a person is arrested, he can be returned by coordinating with the police of the requesting country. The same process can be done in the case of the Deuba couple.