Kathmandu, Feb 10: The Biratnagar High Court has revised the verdict in the 33 kg gold smuggling and Sanam Shakya murder case, adding a further 10 years to the prison sentence of Chudamani Upreti, widely known as Gore, who police identify as the central figure in the smuggling network. At the same time, the court cut jail terms for several of his associates.
A joint bench of judges Mahendra Nath Upadhyay and Prakash Chandra Adhikari delivered the ruling after hearings that began on February 3.
In its earlier decision on October 6, 2021, the Morang District Court had handed life sentences, defined in Nepal as 20 years, to Gore and five others for their role in Shakya’s murder. The High Court upheld Gore’s conviction and imposed an additional 10-year sentence, but showed leniency toward some co-accused.
Narendra Karki, Mohan Kafle, and Bhojraj Bhandari each saw their prison terms reduced by 10 years from the original 20-year sentence. Madan Silwal, who was found guilty of assisting in the crime, received a three-year jail term. Appeals filed by Lakpa Sherpa and Bhavin Tamang were rejected, leaving their earlier convictions unchanged.
Investigators accused Gore and his group of operating a large-scale gold smuggling network that brought gold into Nepal from Dubai and other Gulf countries before sending it onward to India. Police records claim the group moved around 38 quintals of gold between July 2015 and August 2018. As the gold was never recovered, the court ruled that the evidence was insufficient to secure convictions on organized crime charges.
The High Court also upheld acquittals of several other defendants, including former senior police officials Govind Prasad Niraula, Shyam Bahadur Khatri, and Sanjay Bahadur Raut, along with Divesh Lohani, Prajit KC, and Bal Krishna Sanjel.
Morang Police had charged 77 individuals in connection with the case.
The scandal surfaced after 33 kg of gold allegedly vanished following its entry through Tribhuvan International Airport on January 23, 2018. During efforts to locate the missing consignment, Sanam Shakya, a close associate of Gore, was electrocuted to death in Urlabari on March 2, 2018. His body was found the next day inside a vehicle, leading to multiple arrests and eventually to Gore.
A government probe committee later investigated the case, but the missing gold has never been found.
People’s News Monitoring Service
Comments:
Leave a Reply