How Nepal power centres are transfusing dirty politics into already problematic prison management

On October 4, 2021, a letter arrived at Morang Prison to surprise everybody involved in prison management there. It asked the prison to transfer Navin Rai to Jhumka Prison. This was a shock to officials at the prison as they had not recommended transferring Rai anywhere.

Usually, a transfer of a prisoner is done after a recommendation from the prison and has to be signed off by the District Administration Officer. But, nothing of that sort had happened before Rai was transferred. There was a lot of confusion surrounding this but it was only a month later that things started to make sense–when Abhishek Giri was transferred to Morang Prison from Kathmandu.