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Nepali Congress Joint General Secretary Mahendra Yadav has been attacked with a sharp weapon on Wednesday.

Yadav was attacked with a khukuri while he was returning home after attending a program at Bhrikutimandap in Kathmandu.

Police have arrested a man for his alleged involvement in the attack on a Congress leader.

Metropolitan Police Range, Kathmandu spokesperson Kumod Dhungel said that they have taken Shayam Sapkota of Nuwakot under control for investigation.

Yadav, who has sustained injuries on his head, has been taken to the hospital for treatment.

Jituwa Musahar was gazing at the pyres at the cremation grounds of Aryaghat from the Bagmati Bridge the other day. His anguish mirrored that of a bereaved family grappling with the loss of a loved one.

Jituwa, aged 68, hails from the Tharu settlement in Banaha in Bhangaha Municipality-4 of Mahottari. Land mafias manipulated officials to usurp land and property belonging to Jituwa and over a hundred other hapless victims from the settlement. With land registration certificates in their names, they are threatening the locals to vacate the settlement.

About two dozen local residents are now in Kathmandu to draw the government's attention toward their plight. They have secured loans to cover their travel expenses. In the federal capital, they met Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs Narayan Kaji Shrestha and apprised them of their situation.

A meager four-room thatched-roof hut, six kattha of land, and eight mango trees represent the entirety of Jituwa and his family’s possessions. Now, the land mafias are demanding the family to leave the settlement. “For five generations, I have called this place home. Where else can I go?” he questioned.

More than 1,200 individuals of 187 landless families have been living in Banara settlement. People began settling in Banara during the 1950s. Impoverished communities like the Musahar, Chamar, Raut, Tatma, and Tharu have resided in this settlement spread over 45 bighas. Many of them earn a livelihood as daily wage earners.

Locals allege that land mafias have fraudulently registered both the settlements and farmlands in their own names across the entire 45 bighas. These unscrupulous individuals are coming to the settlement armed with land registration certificates, coercing local residents to quit the settlement at the earliest. Some of these unscrupulous actors are selling off land plots in the settlement, while others have pledged them as collateral to secure bank loans.

For the past two and a half decades, local residents have persistently sought government intervention to resolve the matter. Multiple governments have risen and fallen during this period, yet none have heeded their appeals. Even the local representatives, who these people voted into office, now choose to remain as mute spectators.

“We have lost sleep over this. We are on the brink of losing everything we hold dear,” lamented Jituwa. “Residents of the settlement often wake up in the middle of the night, fearing bulldozers will raze their settlement.”

Jituwa recounted how a team from the Landless Commission first visited the settlement back in 1997. “They meticulously surveyed our households and farms. We believed that we would finally obtain land ownership certificates,” he explained. “However, we later learned that the land registration certificates for our property had been issued in someone else’s name.”

According to Jituwa, the land has since changed hands two or three times. He revealed that an individual named Shyam Sah from Birta currently possesses the land ownership certificate for the plot on which he and his family reside. “He is demanding Rs 2.1m for a six-kattha plot. How can I afford such a huge amount of money?” he questioned.

The land grab mafias forged alliances with officials from the Land Revenue Office and Survey Office when Landless Commission teams fanned out to various districts. Through collusion with these officials, they fraudulently registered entire settlements in their own names. These newly designated ‘owners’ were duly registered in the government's records.

During the tenure of the Surya Bahadur Thapa-led coalition government of Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) and Nepali Congress (NC), RPP leader Bishwa Nath Karna was appointed as the head of the Landless Commission in Mahottari. “It was during this time that our land was distributed to people from Okhaldhunga, Morang, Bhojpur, Parsa, and other districts,” Jituwa noted. “They remained dormant for many years but are now becoming active.”

Jituwa claimed to have heard that the commission’s president registered land in the settlement in the names of their relatives at hotels in Janakpur and Jaleshwar. “How can land from this settlement be registered in the names of individuals from Kharia, Suga, Jaleshwar, and Matihani? They neither resided here nor cultivated this land,” Jituwa argued.

Residents of the settlement have visited the ward office, municipality office, land revenue and survey offices, district administration office, and even the Madhes Province Government. However, none have taken any meaningful action to address their grievances.

“Everyone promised to find a solution to our problem. We believed in them and cast our votes, but they forgot about us once they were elected,” Jituwa shared, his frustration palpable.

The Sudurpaschim Province is at high risk of dengue spread, according to the data from the Sudurpaschim Province Health Directorate.

The focal person at the Directorate, Hemraj Joshi, said that the number of dengue patients is increasing day by day.

The province recorded a total of 353 dengue patients in August alone.

"The number of dengue patients has shot up in the month of August," he added.

In the past eight months, the province recorded 680 cases of dengue infection.

As per the data, Kailali district has the highest number of dengue patients while Baitadi has the least number of the infection. During the period, Kailali witnessed 232 patients.

Fortunately, there has not been recorded even a single death caused due to dengue this year.

Last year, the province had recorded four dengue-related deaths.

The ongoing police investigation into recent gold smuggling cases has begun digging a bit deeper.

On Tuesday, the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) of Nepal Police questioned Dipesh Pun, the son of former Vice-president Nanda Bahadur Pun, after his constant contact with the gang suspected of involvement in smuggling gold by concealing the yellow metal in brake shoes of bikes and scooters came to light. 

The illegal gold dispatched via a Cathay Pacific flight originating in Hong Kong had passed through a high-security Tribhuvan International Airport, only to be confiscated at Sinamangal on July 19. 

Pun produced himself at the CIB where a team quizzed him for about four hours. CIB sources informed that Pun denied his involvement in gold smuggling. 

The investigation has revealed that the former vice-president’s family had contacts with Dawa Tshering, a Belgian citizen of Chinese origin linked to gold smuggling. 

Dipesh Pun therefore has come under the scanner and reports suggest that he has a business partnership with Dawa Tshering.

Tsering is married to Amala Roka Magar of Rolpa district and this is how the Pun family, also from Rolpa, came into contact with him. 

The CIB is investigating around 100 different people in connection with the case, including 26 people—six of them foreigners—who are already in police custody.

As part of the probe, it has sent Senior Superintendent of Police Dinesh Acharya to Hong Kong for investigating possible local connections involved in gold smuggling.

The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority has also started bringing employees in connection with the gold smuggling case under the purview of its investigation by collecting their property details, sources at the CIAA said. 

After it came to light that the then director-general at the Ministry of Finance Jhalakram Adhikari had conversed with those arrested in connection with the case, other employees have also come 

under probe. 

Recently, the CIB has arrested Rahul Mahara, son of former speaker of the House of Representative Krishna Bahadur Mahara, as part of the investigation into the smuggling of nine kg of gold concealed in electronic cigarettes popularly known as vapes.

On 25 Dec, 2022, customs officials at the TIA had confiscated around 730 e-cigarettes dispatched to Nepal through a Fly Dubai flight originating in Hong Kong.

The CIB investigation revealed that the Mahara duo had phone conversations with Chinese racketeers 256 times.

In a public function, Mahara, the former speaker, conceded that he had telephonic conversations with the Chinese national accused in the gold smuggling case but he knew him only as a fruit dealer and had no knowledge of the case.

He later accepted calling airport authorities to ‘inquire about the product’.