KATHMANDU: The Birgunj bench of the Janakpur High Court has acquitted Nepali Congress leader Mohammad Aftab Alam in the infamous Rautahat bombing and murder case.
The verdict overturns a previous ruling by the Rautahat District Court, which had sentenced Alam to life imprisonment.
The high court bench, consisting of Justices Khusi Prasad Tharu and Arjun Maharjan, dismissed four criminal charges against Alam. However, it upheld the district court’s decision in a related case where Alam was not listed as a defendant.
Alam had been in prison since the Rautahat District Court found him guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment on April 25, 2024. The charges stemmed from a 2008 bomb blast in Rajpur, Rautahat, which allegedly killed several individuals and led to a gruesome cover-up.
According to the allegations, during the 2008 Constituent Assembly elections, Alam brought individuals from India to manufacture bombs in a bid to capture polling booths.
A premature explosion killed two people on the spot and seriously injured at least 11 others. Instead of taking the wounded to hospitals, Alam allegedly had them thrown into a brick kiln alive to destroy evidence and conceal the incident.
The victims included both Nepali and Indian nationals. Several families of the missing victims later filed complaints with the police, including Rukhsana Khatun and Shrinayaran Singh, who directly accused Alam of orchestrating the killings.
Despite the gravity of the allegations, the case remained dormant for years until police resumed investigation and arrested Alam from his residence on October 13, 2019, nearly 12 years after the incident. At the time, he was a sitting Member of Parliament from Rautahat Constituency-2.
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