The Kaski District Court has granted police permission to hold Rastriya Swatantra Party chief Rabi Lamichhane in custody for an additional 10 days to support further investigation.

On Tuesday, the court extended the custody remand, which includes the Tihar holiday.

Lamichhane has already spent five days in custody, so he will remain in detention for another five days. Although Lamichhane’s extended remand expired on October 30, he remained in custody due to the Tihar festival, which started on October 31.

Alongside Lamichhane, custody remand of Chhabilal Joshi and Leela Pachhai also extended for the same duration.

Meanwhile, police are preparing to transfer Lamichhane to Butwal in Rupandehi district for further investigation related to the Supreme Cooperative fraud.

The District Court, Kaski, on October 24, had previously remanded former home minister Lamichhane to seven days in custody for the second time. He was arrested in connection with the Pokhara-based Suryadarshan Cooperative's fund embezzlement case on October 18. Lamichhane has been in custody for the investigation on fraud, organised crime and money laundering allegations.

A police team from the Central Investigation Bureau arrested Lamichhane at his party’s head office in Banasthali, Kathmandu. They subsequently transported him by road to Pokhara—200 km west of Kathmandu—for trial, as the case was filed at the District Police Office, Kaski.

A parliamentary special probe committee, formed in May to investigate crisis-ridden cooperatives, concluded that Lamichhane was involved in misusing millions of rupees funneled into Gorkha Media Network from various cooperatives when he was managing director of the now-defunct media company that operated Galaxy 4K Television. This alleged misuse occurred before he entered politics in June 2022.

In connection with the Suryadarshan Cooperative fraud case, suspects Leela Pachhai and Ram Bahadur Khanal also faced remand extension requests. Authorities discovered an unauthorised transfer of Rs30 million from the cooperative to Pachhai’s account.

Khanal, 48, a Tanahun native and shareholder in the Gorkha Group of Companies Limited, was detained by a Central Investigation Bureau team on October 25 in Kathmandu. He also owns Nature Herbs International.

The police are preparing to take Lamichhane to Butwal for an investigation into allegations of cooperative fraud and organised crime.

Police briefly detain 8 protesters after clash in Pokhara

Police briefly detained eight protesters after the clash with Rabi Lamichhane-led Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) cadres in Pokhara on Tuesday afternoon.

Tensions rose in Pokhara as a protest in support of RSP chair Lamichhane, who is currently under police custody for investigation on charges of cooperative fraud and organised crime, led to a confrontation with the police.

The police used tear gas canisters when protesters attempted to breach a restricted area. RSP activists began their protest ahead of Lamichhane’s scheduled court appearance for an extension of his custody at Kaski District Court. The clash occurred when the activists, who were heading towards Y-Chowk, were intercepted by the police at Ratna Chowk.