Equal before law

Now that Lamichhane is under arrest, the accused Congress and UML leaders must also be probed.

Given the mountain of evidence piled up by the special parliamentary probe committee to establish his involvement in the misappropriation of funds of various cooperatives, the arrest of Rabi Lamichhane, the Rastriya Swatantra Party chief and former deputy prime minister and home minister, was inevitable. Misusing the funds of hundreds of thousands of poor depositors, most of whom occupy the lowest rungs of the national economic ladder, is the most dastardly crime. We thus hope that those named by the committee, including Lamichhane, are brought to book. But that is not enough. Following Lamichhane’s arrest, his supporters have been blaming the government of being motivated by personal vendetta against the RSP chair. As evidence, they point to Nepali Congress vice-president Dhanaraj Gurung and CPN-UML federal lawmaker Rishikesh Pokharel, who, they allege, are being let off the hook despite their involvement in similar scandals.