Sharma | Pakistan

Nepal’s former prime minister, K P Sharma Oli, was arrested on Saturday as police investigate whether he was negligent in failing to prevent dozens of deaths in a crackdown on Gen Z-led anti-corruption protests last September, officials said. Oli’s arrest, which his lawyer said was illegal and sparked protests by supporters who clashed with police, followed rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah’s swearing in as prime minister on Friday and a recommendation by a panel investigating violence during the protests that he should be prosecuted for negligence. His former home minister, Ramesh Lekhak, was also arrested. Seventy-six people were killed last September during a police crackdown on protesters demanding an end to corruption, more jobs and cleaner politics, leading to Oli’s resignation. After his arrest on Saturday, supporters staged protest rallies and clashed with police who tried to stop them burning tyres near the prime minister’s office. Police lobbed a teargas shell and used batons to break up the pr...

A Nepal commission has recommended the prosecution of ex-prime minister KP Sharma Oli in connection with the deadly September 2025 uprising that toppled his government, according to a leaked report. At least 77 people were killed in the anti-corruption youth uprising on September 8 and 9, which began over a brief social media ban but tapped into longstanding fury over economic hardship. Four-time prime minister and Marxist leader Oli, 74, was defeated in the polls this month by the 35-year-old rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah, whose Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) won in a landslide after promising to oust an ageing elite, stem corruption and fix the economy. The commission’s recommendations, set out in a report leaked by Nepali media, came ahead of the swearing-in on Thursday of newly elected members of parliament. “It was decided to recommend to the government of Nepal that an investigation, inquiry, and prosecution be carried out against the then executive head, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli,” reads a ...