Oli arrested for submitting memo to UN Secy Gen

NF correspondent

Police arrested noted singer and radio journalist Komal Oli after she submitted a memorandum to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon at Hotel Hyatt Regency on 1 November. Oli was released after four hours in police detention within minutes of Moon’s take off to Lumbini from Tribhuvan International Airport. Oli had submitted a memorandum to the Secretary General on behalf of nearly 200 Maoist victims demanding that ‘his good office’ intervene to ensure that the rightful owners got their property back which Maoists had captured in the past and were still illegally owning it. Oli submitted the memorandum as the Secretary General stepped out of the lift of the hotel lobby at 8.50 in the morning. “I was arrested immediately, detained briefly in the Boudha police station and then taken over to Naxal,” Oli told Newsfront. Wajir Thapa, chairman of the Maoist victims association, who had gone to the hotel with Oli, was detained as soon as he stepped in the hotel that had been put under tight security. The memorandum that Oli submitted to the Secretary General said those who were victimised by the Maoists by capturing their property had not yet received justice. It called for his intervention in getting the property released. The security guards, apparently unsuspecting, were on high alert only after Oli submitted her memorandum. Her parental property in Dang had been seized by the Maoists last year. Repeated requests and formal petitions submitted to UNMIN, OHCHR and the government here has yielded no results, “And I felt compelled to reach out to the Secretary General,”Oli said. In fact, the event foiled the Maoist led government’s plan to not to let any possible protestors come close to the UN Secretary General with complaints against the Maoists. There were more than 200 protestors waiting outside the hotel complex in Boudha sitting quietly along the Secretary General’s exit route.