Police on Tuesday arrested three district leaders of the Netra Bikram Chand-led Communist Party of Nepal from Tulsipur in Dang district.

The leaders’ arrest comes at a time when the government has launched a crackdown on Chand-led party leaders following the detonation of an improvised explosive device near the gate of Ncell head office in Nakkhu, Lalitpur, which claimed the life of one person and injured two others on February 22.

According to the District Police Office, Dang, Chand-led party’s district party office member Pradip Oli, district secretariat member Ishwari Pandey and district party member Rudra Oli have been arrested as part of the investigation following the spike in incidents of forceful donations and violence in the district. The trio were arrested as they were attending a programme organised by the party in Tulsipur to felicitate the family members of martyrs and disappeared in the conflict.

District Police Chief Superintendent Bel Bahadur Pandey said that the arrestees were people of interest following information that they were extorting donations from various industries, businesses, schools, among other places. SP Pandey added that the trio were being surveilled they as they posed a threat to the people and society.

Last week, Dev Kumar Limbu, a Communist Party of Nepal leader, was arrested in Dharan with an M16 and a light machine gun. Police said initial investigation shows the weapons were part of those the former Maoist rebels had looted from the Rolpa barracks of the Nepal Army.

Likewise, following the IED attack, the Department of Money Laundering Investigation launched an investigation into Khadga Bahadur Bishwakarma, spokesperson for the Communist Party of Nepal, for his involvement in possible terror financing.

The police had handed over documents related to the outfit’s extortion drive, claiming that the extorted amount was being used to conduct terror acts in various places.