Police have made two more arrests in connection with the Lalita Niwas land scam.

The Central Investigation Bureau of the Nepal Police arrested Ramesh Kumar Pokharel, the former head of Samarjung Company, and Dev Narayan Maharjan.

“They were arrested in connection with the scam on Monday,” Senior Superintendent of Police Dinesh Acharya of the CIB told the Post.

Pokharel has been accused of forging government documents with the intent of transferring the ownership of the government land located at Lalita Niwas, Baluwatar, in the name of Pashupati Tikicha Guthi.

Meanwhile, Maharjan, who was presented as a tiller by the guthi, was taken into custody allegedly for taking Rs600,000 to carry out the task, police investigation revealed.

With this, a total of eight arrests have been made in connection with the scam as of yet.

The police had arrested seven accused on June 27. Three of them —Kaladhar Deuja, Surendra Kapali and Hupendra Mani KC— were released later in the day citing a stay order issued by the Supreme Court on August 4 last year that had prevented their detention for investigation.

Three more individuals—Baburaja Maharjan, Ghaman Kumar Karki and Shivaji Bhattarai—were taken into police custody by the police on Sunday.

Lalita Niwas covers around 300 ropanis [around 15 hectares] of land and includes the areas of the prime minister’s residence, Nepal Rastra Bank’s central office and some other VIP residences.