Police said investigators have not been able to determine why businessman Anjani Kumar Chachan was shot dead and why Energy Minister Gokarna Bista was attacked with khukuri. Bista was attacked by an unidentified gang outside his house in Samakhusi Town Planning Area on Monday, while Chachan was shot dead in Ganabahal the day before. The culprits are still at large.

“Preliminary investigation suggests the shooting and hacking were targeted attacks, not random ones. But it would require lot of time, effort and investigation to unearth the truth and bring the guilty to book,” he said.

A senior police official linked the incidents with three issues - purely criminal acts, contract killers hired by rival groups and tactics to create panic among people. “But it will be too early to confirm the motive. For this, culprits should be apprehended first. Officials said they had two major challenges at hand - solving the crimes and taking pre-emptive measures to check crime.

DIG Surendra Bahadur Shah said unplanned settlements and huge population concentration in Kathmandu had provided safe haven for hit-and-run criminals. He said they were investigating the murder of Chachan and the attack on Bista separately.

Nepal Police on Wednesday formed a three-member probe committee led by DIGP Rajendra Singh Bhandari, in-charge, Central Investigation Bureau to investigate the attack on the Energy Minister and CPN-UML leader Gokarna Bista.

Source: The Himalayan Times