Police have arrested three persons for planting a bomb at the Matrika Eye Centre in Old Baneshwor and demanding ransom.
Among the arrested are Ashish Kunwar and Abhishek Kunwar of Tripura Sundari Rural Municipality-5 in Dhading and Ammar Bahadur Roka Magar of Kholawang of Kureli Rural Municipality-1 in Rolpa.
The accused were made public at a press conference held at the Metropolitan Police Range, Kathmandu on Sunday. They were arrested by the special team formed under the command of Superintendent of Police of the Range on Saturday evening from Phutung, Balaju.
Three days ago, the arrested members had planted a minor mobile phone-connected bomb at the toilet of the Centre which was defused by a Nepali Army team.
Ashish and Abhishek are brothers. One month ago, Ashish went to Matrika Eye Hospital for eye treatment where he had undergone an operation of his eye.
There he changed his eye lens and returned after spending Rs. 80,000, according to Superintend of Police and spokesperson of the Range Ramesh Kumar Basnet.
They were preparing to go to Belgium and had been found taking a loan of Rs. 1.7 million from a cooperative.
After being arrested by the police on Saturday, Ashish said, “I thought the money would easily come after seeing the hospital’s good condition and income. Then, I made a plan to plant a bomb to repay the loan and go abroad,” Ashish told the police in his statement.
The group had demanded Rs. 30 million ransom from the owner of the Centre, Dr. Kishwor Pradhan. They were arrested after police recovered the CCTV footage, their call detail records (CDR), and Base Transceiver Station (BTS), said police.
“The accused had demanded a ransom of Rs. 30 million from the hospital operator,” SP Basnet said.
Thinking of raising manpower costs, Ashish learned to make a bomb by watching YouTube videos. After learning to make the bomb by watching YouTube on July 7, he had bought a mobile phone at Rs. 4,600. Ashish and Abhishek made the bomb after buying three Ncell and Smart SIM cards along with the mobile phone.
Video footage of the CCTV showed that they came along with the mobile improvised bomb in a taxi and placed it in the third floor of the Centre.
After planting the time bomb, Ashish’s brother called an employee of the eye hospital and informed that there was a bomb in the toilet of the hospital. The employee then asked the management of the Centre and the group started bargaining for money with owner Pradhan.
Source : TRN,
