The CPN-UML has demanded the immediate release of its chair KP Sharma Oli and Nepali Congress leader Ramesh Lekhak, describing their arrests as “illegal” and driven by a “political vendetta”.

Following an emergency Secretariat meeting convened after the detentions, general secretary Shankar Pokharel said the party would challenge the move both legally and politically.

“We express our strongest condemnation of the biased and illegal arrest of our party chair and former prime minister KP Sharma Oli, alongside Congress leader and former home minister Ramesh Lekhak, carried out before dawn today,” Pokharel said. “The party maintains that these arrests contravene democratic values and the rule of law.”

The Secretariat has called for the formation of a new high-level commission of inquiry, to be led by a sitting Supreme Court justice, to ensure an impartial investigation.

UML also decided to initiate joint action with other political parties, civil society and the public to protest what it called “planned and illegal arrests” and to defend human rights and the rule of law.

As part of its protest programme, the UML said its district committees would submit formal protest letters to the Government of Nepal through their respective District Administration Offices on Sunday.

Pokhrel added that the party is consulting legal experts to finalise its strategy for judicial recourse.