Police on Sunday arrested three individuals, including a government secretary, in connection with the Lalita Niwas land scam.

The Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) of Nepal Police arrested Secretary at the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology Krishna Bahadur Raut, the then head of Samarjung Company Lok Hari Ghimire and survey official Dhrubha Prasad Aryal for their alleged involvement in transferring the ownership of government land at Lalita Niwas in the name of private individuals.

According to police, Ghimire was arrested from Bhaktapur and Aryal from Kalanki area on Sunday.

The CIB chief, Additional Inspector General of Police Kiran Bajracharya, confirmed to the Post that Raut had been arrested from the domestic terminal of Tribhuvan International Airport on Sunday evening while he was about to board a flight to Biratnagar.

A preliminary investigation by the bureau has revealed that Ghimire, when he was the head of the Samarjung Company, was involved in embezzlement because he did not take action to claim the government land which was being claimed by the other accused.

“All the three are accused in the Lalita Niwas land scam as they were involved in forging government documents with the intent to transfer the ownership of the government land in the name of private individuals,” said Senior Superintendent Dinesh Acharya of the CIB.

“All the three arrestees will be presented before the Kathmandu District Court on Monday,” said Acharya.

The three people will be kept at the CIB office in Maharajgunj.

Police have so far arrested nine individuals in connection with the case.

The CIB on June 27 had arrested seven persons in connection with the scam. However, three people—Kaladhar Deuja, Surendra Kapali and Hupendra Mani KC—were later released during the day owing to a previous stay order in connection with another case related to the same land scam.

Meanwhile, the remaining arrestees including former election commissioner Sudhir Shah, Bhatbhateni Supermarket owner Min Bahadur Gurung, and former employees of Land Revenue Office Dharma Prasad Gautam and Gopal Karki were remanded to seven days in police custody on June 28.

On July 2, the police bureau arrested Baburaja Maharjan, Ghaman Kumar Karki and Shivaji Bhattarai in connection with the land scam while two more accused—Ramesh Kumar Pokharel, the former head of Samarjung Company, and Dev Narayan Maharjan—were caught on July 3.

The Kathmandu District Court on July 4 extended the custody of all nine individuals arrested in connection with the scam by seven days while also allowing the police to investigate them for organised crime. The CIB was earlier probing them for document forgery only.

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