Nepal car bomber amassed bombs, rocket launcher

KATHMANDU - The man who had masterminded a car bomb blast in Kathmandu was planning more attacks with a formidable arsenal that included bombs, explosives and a rocket launcher.

Bishnu Shah, who had fled the capital after engineering a car bomb blast near a private nursing home in the capital Tuesday but was caught the same night by police, Friday led his captors to his hideout in Kathmandu where police found a huge quantity of explosives as well as a rocket launcher.

Shah lived in the Vasundhara area of the capital, where the explosion had occurred, and had stockpiled several kinds of bombs as well as over a dozen cartons packed with gun powder.

Further details were not disclosed immediately as a five-member police team aided by a crime division branch and other units continued on the trail of a newly formed underground party that had claimed responsibility for the bomb explosion.

Soon after a Maruti car exploded in Kathmandu, the Swatantra Nepal Dal (Free Nepal Party) - a never-before-heard of organisation - sent emails to the media, owning responsibility and calling it a “test case”.

The statement said the outfit would now take action against Nepal’s major parties and their “paid” MPs for their failure to promulgate the much-awaited new constitution by May 28.

Shah had hired the newly bought Maruti car that belonged to an unsuspecting transporter, put three bombs as well as 40 litres of petrol in the vehicle and told the driver to wait for him near the nursing home. But he never turned up and the parked car went up in flames.

Almost immediately, police arrested the driver, Dipak Biswakarma, a second man who was with him and a third who owned the shop where Shah had kept the bombs and the cans of petrol.