Police arrested three persons for firearm possession in the Capital on Thursday.

Devendra Bhandari, 35, Suman Khadka, 50, and Manoj Kumar Basnet, 47, all residents of Kathmandu, were caught with a pistol and five rounds of bullets from a passenger bus.
The three men were travelling in a bus that was heading towards Kathmandu from Chovar.

“The arrestees are now in custody of the Metropolitan Crime Division, Teku. The trio already has a criminal history of robbery. This time, they were planning to rob people using the pistol,” said SSP Sahakul Thapa, chief at the Metropolitan Crime Division.

The arrested men will be charged under the Arms and Ammunition Act 2019, Thapa added.

The number of people possessing illegal weapons is on the rise, police data show.

Security personnel detained as many as 222 persons in the fiscal year 2016/17 while the number of arrestees rose to 254 in the fiscal year 2017/18.
Similarly, in the previous fiscal year 2018/19, the number of people caught for firearm possession was 351.

“Most weapons and firearms are smuggled from India, as Nepal and India share an open border,” said SSP Uttam Raj Subedi, chief at Metropolitan Police Range.