21-year-old Rajeev Basnet from Birtamod Jhapa is studying CA in Kathmandu. One day he receives a friend request from a girl on Facebook. Rajeev also accepts the request of a beautiful looking girl. A conversation starts between the girl and Rajeev on Facebook, who says that he also lives in Birtamod.
After talking, the girl asks for Rajiv’s mobile number. Even though Rajiv gave her his mobile number, the conversation was only on Facebook messenger.
After some time, Rajeev returns from Kathmandu to Birtamod. He also gives the information to the girl. Even after reaching Jhapa, the conversation between the two continues. During the conversation, the girl says that she wants to visit Sri Antu in Elam. Rajeev also promises to take the girl around Sri Antu. But before going to Sri Antu, there is a matter of meeting once.
According to which, the girl and Rajiv met on the evening of January 4 at a place called Salbari Dhil in Jhapa. In the meeting that lasted for about 2 hours, the girl says that her real home is in Manipur, India. She says that she likes Elam and has relatives in Elam. After the meeting, the two people plan to visit Sri Antu in Ilam the next day (January 5).
Rajeev also tells his sister that he is going to visit Sri Antu. However, Rajeev does not tell that he is going to visit the girl, but tells that he is going to visit Elam with his friends and will stay there that day.
According to the previous plan, Rajeev leaves home at around 6:30 am on January 5th. The family didn’t care much about staying in Ilam that day. But after Rajiv did not return home even till the evening of January 6th and the mobile phone was switched off, the family reported their son missing at Birtamode police office in Ela on the evening of January 6th. Then the police start searching for Rajiv.
The police, who were looking for Rajiv, did not get any clue as to what had happened in the initial stage. When searching for Rajiv’s location and call details, Salbari was seen as the last location, but it was found that Rajiv’s mobile was switched off about one and a half hours after he left home on the morning of 5th January. A number that was in contact with Rajiv from the previous day to the day of his disappearance and the mobile number with which he was last contacted had also been switched off. After that, the police thought that Rajiv and the girl went to India for sightseeing. However, the police continued to search.
A few days after the incident, the police received information that Rajiv had been kidnapped. Then the police became alert and intensified the search for Rajiv. In the meantime, the police had started studying the CCTV footage. After the technical investigation confirmed that Rajiv had gone to the place where the location was last seen the previous day, the police increased the surveillance of all the CCTV footage in that area. There was a message threatening that Rajiv was kidnapped and that he would kill himself if he did not pay a ransom of 40 crores.
And then the intensive investigation began
As soon as the information was received that Rajiv was abducted and a ransom was demanded, the Jhapa police conducted a technical investigation based on the mobile number with which it was last communicated, and it was confirmed that the real user and the registered person are different. At the same time, while studying the CCTV footage, it was found that Rajiv was walking with a girl. While following the same CCTV footage, it was seen that the girl entered a house.
The police used suraki to get information about the house where the girl entered and the girl who lived in that house. After the information came to know, the girl who met Rajiv had already gone to India. But the police got information that three girls were living in that house and two of them had gone to India and one girl was still there. The police decided to monitor the girl and assigned the police to monitor the girl.
On the evening of January 11, the girl reached a hotel. The police also monitored the hotel and arrested the girl from the hotel in the morning of January 12th. After the girl was taken into custody from the hotel, the girl said that the other two girls are now in India but she has no information about Rajeev. The girl to be arrested was a local resident, Yonghang.
After repeated actions and technical analysis of the girl’s mobile phone, it was found that two other girls along with the arrested girl were involved in Rajiv’s disappearance. After investigating the same Pratishka, it came to know that the girl who was close to Rajiv was Deepika Limbu who was related to Pratishka’s sister and she was not from Manipur but from Nepal. Deepika was studying while waiting in Birtamode.
This is how the kidnapping happened
On the morning of January 5th, according to the previous plan, Rajiv Basnet goes to meet Deepika on his scooter number 1-01-015 P 8097. Rajiv asks Deepika to come to the market in front of the city center, but she calls him near Lakshmi Mavi in Arjundhara Municipality saying that she does not have an auto.
Rajiv reaches there to take Deepika. After a short scooter ride, Deepika feels like she wants to vomit. Rajiv stops the scooter when Deepika asks him to stop the scooter.
Deepika gets off the scooter and pretends to vomit. At the same time, a bolero jeep arrives there and people in a group of 5-6 people take control of Rajiv and blindfold him. And they put him in the same bolero and take him away.
On the other hand, after successfully kidnapping Rajiv in a honey trap, Deepika Limbu, a girl who is close to Rajiv, and another girl leave for India on the same day. Rajiv was also prepared to be taken to India, but after learning that the police in the border districts including Jhapa were kept on high alert, a group of kidnappers kept Rajiv hostage in a place in Nepal.
Three days after being kidnapped, the group of kidnappers sent a message to Rajiv’s mother and demanded a ransom of 40 crores. But the family does not remember the messages received on the mother’s mobile phone.
The day after the first message was received, Rajiv’s father Kamal Basnet was again contacted and demanded a ransom of Rs 40 crore. The group of kidnappers says that the reason for demanding the ransom money is that Basnet’s son was kidnapped after Basnet did not pay the amount due in the gold transaction with Rajkumar Bhandari in Manipur, India.
On the other hand, after the police arrested Pratiksha, it was discovered that Rajkumar Bhandari had arranged to kidnap Rajiv with the planning and support of Sharad Thapa Magar, who had a permanent address in Manipur, India, and others including Sharad Thapa Magar. It is also found that Sharad Thapa Magar is a member of ULFA, a criminal group of Manipur, India and he is on the most wanted list of the Manipur Police.
After finding out that the people involved in the incident, including the main planner, are in India, DSP Rugam Bahadur Kunwar of Birtamod, in coordination with the police headquarters, makes them understand Rajkumar Bhandari in Manipur. The police headquarters gets a DSP who had earlier undergone IPS training in India to understand the case of Rajkumar Bhandari. The DSP, who had previously committed crimes in Nepal and fled to India in coordination with the Indian police and brought them to Nepal, arrested Rajkumar in coordination with the SP of Manipur.
After Rajkumar was arrested in Manipur, Birtamod DSP Rugam Bahadur Kunwar contacted Rajkumar and talked about releasing Rajiv from kidnapping. At first, Rajkumar keeps repeating his claim that he had no involvement in Rajiv’s kidnapping. Later, Rajkumar’s father, Kamal Basnet, demands half of the land in Birtamod, saying that he owes more than 20 million Indian rupees.
DSP Kunwar also said that Rajkumar should be given the land or the money to be taken, but the first condition should be to leave Rajiv. But he also informs that he does not know about Rajiv and that the people he talked to might have kidnapped him.
After not seeing any way to free Rajiv, preparations are being made to bring Rajiv to Nepal in coordination with Manipur police. The Manipur police also came with an official letter and said that they would hand it over to the prince, the police went to Manipur with the letter from Jhapa to take the prince. But after contacting the police who went to pick up the prince in Manipur, which is 1,100 km from Jhapa, the Indian police again says that ‘the prince cannot be given immediately’.
According to the police, the Chief Minister of Manipur pressured the Indian police not to send the prince to Nepal. The police said that the Chief Minister had given this instruction to the police as there is a close relationship between Rajkumar and the Chief Minister of Manipur. After pressure from the Chief Minister, the Jhapa police who went to pick up the prince returned to Nepal by road.
On the other hand, the police intensified the search and arrest. The police also reached the house of Pratishka Yonghang’s family, Deepika Limbu and another girl, and after the police reached the camp of Sharad Thapa Magar’s wife in Lalitpur, the group of abductors was forced to release Rajiv. A group of abductors brought Rajiv Basnet to the area near Deunia Bridge on the East-West Highway at 11 o’clock in the night on January 14 and freed him from the abduction.
The group of abductors freed Rajiv by taking Rajiv’s smart phone and putting Rajiv’s SIM card in the keypad phone. Apart from that, they took some money with Rajiv and returned only one thousand rupees to Rajiv as travel expenses.
The police, who were also involved in Rajiv’s missing scooter, found the scooter that Rajiv was riding in a garage across the water tank towards India. However, the police have prepared the documents found in the border area in their warrant.
Agree to give 25-25 lakhs to girls
It has been found that the police involved in the investigation agreed to pay 25-25 lakhs to Pratishka Yonghang, Deepika Limbu and another girl for abducting Rajiv. According to the Jhapa police, there was an agreement to give money to the girls in return for their help in abducting Pari in a honey trap and to send the girls abroad immediately after the abduction.
Attempt to kidnap Rajiv’s mother too
It has been found that Rajkumar Bhandari’s group came to Jhapa last June and kidnapped a member of Kamal Basnet’s family and planned to take ransom from Kamal. Before this, some people including Rajkumar had come to Jhapa and met with Pratishka Yonghang and other people and had planned to abduct a family member.
Kamal Basnet’s wife believes more in religion and because everyone calls her mother, it has been found that a plan was made to kidnap Kamal’s wife when she went to the temple a few months ago.
A few months ago, a member of the same group of young women visited Kamal’s wife at the temple and asked her to go home and touch the patient saying that she had heard that a member of her family was very sick and that if the ‘mother’ touched her, she would be cured. But Kamal’s wife refused to go to her house with the girl, saying that she does not go to other people’s houses but will touch them if she brings a patient.
During interrogation after Rajiv’s abduction, a member of the kidnapping group told the police that they had tried to kidnap Rajiv’s mother earlier but failed.
According to the Jhapa Police, it has been revealed that there is a business relationship between Rajkumar Bhandari alias Raju, who has a permanent residence in Jhapa and is currently living in Manipur, India, and Rajiv’s father Kamal Basnet. The police have made a preliminary conclusion that Rajiv was abducted because they lived in Manipur, India, and traded gold as a partnership, and the amount of the transaction was not shared or reconciled. The police said that further investigation is underway in this regard.
Although the police started further investigation, it was not found where the kidnappers had taken Rajeev. According to the police, nothing more is known about the kidnapping because the person directly involved in the kidnapping has not been arrested. Even though Rajkumar has made an Aadhaar card in India, since he has not obtained Indian citizenship, the police has prepared to request him from official sources to bring him to Nepal. The police said that a total of 9 people were involved in the kidnapping, and 6 of them were men and three were Nepalese girls.
