Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Nepal-minister-in-sex-scandal/articleshow/4222710.cmsKATHMANDU: Is he a Maoist, communist
or Madhesi? That’s the question on everyone’s lips in Kathmandu as
police and the five-party
government remain tight-lipped about the identity of a
mystery minister who managed to escape being arrested in a sex sting that has
netted police a lawmaker from a leading party.
On Friday, when Nepal
made history by throwing open its former royal palace to the public, a
constituent assembly member from the opposition Nepali Congress party also made
headlines, though for a different reason.
Krishna Yadav, in his 40s,
was arrested along with 33 others, including
army personnel, as police raided
several massage parlours in the capital that were allegedly a front for flesh
trade. Yadav, who was elected from Rautahat district in the Terai plains of
southern Nepal in April, beating his nearest rival from the Madhesi Janadhikar
Forum party, was caught “in the act†from a private apartment behind
Kathmandu’s famed Kanti Children’s Hospital, police
said.
Police said they had raided the joint after complaints from
neighbours. Since then Yadav, the father of two, has been released on bail while
police said they would charge him under the Public Offence Act.
The
ripples created by the arrest have grown with reports that Yadav was part of a
pleasure-seeking group that also included a minister from the government of
Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda. According to reports, the minister
leapt out of the window when police raided the apartment, and fled without
pausing to collect his scattered clothes.
Police came to know about
the minister’s presence when they caught his chauffeur and an aide who had
been told to keep guard over his car that was parked in the children’s
hospital.
The issue was raised afresh by the Jana Aastha weekly
Wednesday which reported that some ministers were pressuring the
prime minister to disclose the identity of the involved peer, saying they were being regarded
with suspicion by the public.
The tabloid is trying to ferret out the
closely guarded secret by a process of elimination. Using its sources, it has
ruled out 10 ministers since some of them were out of Kathmandu at that time.
Another – home minister Bam Dev Gautam - is ill and under medical
treatment, and the rest are women.
However, it has raised a
tongue-in-cheek question. The minister’s trousers were left
behind, it says. In the past, it would have definitely indicated a man. But now,
with two Maoist women ministers in the cabinet favouring trousers, the abandoned
pants could belong to anyone, it has argued.
