Kanak Mani Dixit, a well-known Nepalese journalist and rights activist considered well-disposed towards India was on Friday arrested by the anti-graft body here for ignoring summons over accusations of “amassing disproportionate assets”.
Dixit, also the Chairman of Sajha Yatayat – the public transportation bus system in Nepal which serves Kathmandu Valley – was arrested from his Patan residence by a team of around 20 police personnel deployed by the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA).
The anti-graft body has been probing the property details of Dixit on suspicion of “amassing property disproportionate to his known source of income”.
Dixit, 60, had been ignoring summons by the constitutional anti-graft body and was “on the run”, according to the CIAA. “We have arrested the Sajha Yatayat Chairman Dixit, not the journalist, to investigate his involvement in corruption,” said CIAA spokesperson Krishna Hari Pushkar.
In a statement issued on Friday, the watchdog said Dixit has been arrested in connection with complaints that he misused his public position as the chairman of Sajha Yatayat to accumulate property illegally.
Pushkar said the arrest was carried out after Dixit did not obey the Commission’s request to present himself at the Commission made via letters and telephones calls repeatedly.
Other complaints registered at the CIAA against Dixit are that he has deposited money at domestic and foreign banks in his and his family members’ names by embezzling the Sajha Yatayat’s property.
He is accused of selling the organisational property as own inheritance and investing the income in other corporations. He has also been alleged to have procured a house and land in his name in the US.
The property details submitted to the CIAA do not match the actual property registered in his and his family members’ names, according to the statement. The civil society leader, however, told local media after the arrest that the move was following an undemocratic decision of CIAA chief Lokman Singh Karki.
Dixit, the publisher of Himal and Nepali Times magazines who also writes for leading India media outlets, said he has been kept at the custody in CIAA central office in Tangal of Kathmandu.
Earlier in December, the Commission had summoned Dixit to its office to inquire about sources of his income. Dixit had challenged the move at the Supreme Court.