Former land revenue official implicated in Balwuatar land scam commits suicide

KATHMANDU: Former Land Revenue Office official, Yukta Prasad Shrestha, who was implicated in the Baluwatar land scam committed suicide, police said.

Shrestha, former Nayab Subba, a non-gazetted first-class officer, and also a Nepali Congress leader, committed suicide by jumping off from the seventh floor of a shopping mall in Machhapokhari on Sunday afternoon.

Shrestha, who has retired from his service 16 years ago, was currently giving his statement to the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) in connection to the land scam.

According to SSP Uttam Raj Subedi, the police is investigating the incident. Shrestha’s body has been currently kept at the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital.

It should be noted that a probe committee formed by the government under former secretary Sharada Prasad Trital had maintained that the land in Baluwatar was transferred to individuals with the connivance of land revenue officials and land mafia.

The Trital committee had submitted the report in December 2018 stating that the land belonged to the government.