Nepal’s ex-PM Oli detained over alleged role in deadly protest crackdown

New home minister says arrest of former leader is the ‘beginning of justice’.

Nepal’s police have arrested former Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and ex-Home Affairs Minister Ramesh Lekhak over their alleged involvement in a deadly crackdown on protesters last year.

The detentions on Saturday came a day after Prime Minister Balendra Shah and his cabinet were sworn in after the first elections since the 2025 uprising that toppled Oli’s government.

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“They were arrested this morning and the process will move forward according to the law,” Kathmandu Valley police spokesman Om Adhikari said.

According to The Kathmandu Post, Oli, 74, was taken into custody from his residence in Bhaktapur, a suburb of the capital, Kathmandu. Images later showed Oli waking into a hospital, dressed all in white, and surrounded by police officers.

Lekhak was also detained on Saturday from another area of Bhaktapur, his personal secretary Janak Bhatta told the Post.

In a statement on Facebook, new Home Minister Sudan Gurung wrote, “promise is a promise: No one is above the law”.

“This is not vengeance against anyone, it is simply the beginning of justice. I believe the country is now headed in a new direction,” said Gurung.

Oli has yet to issue a statement regarding the arrest.

At least 77 people were killed in the anticorruption uprising on September 8-9, 2025, which began over a brief social media ban but tapped into longstanding fury over economic hardship.

At least 19 young people were killed in the crackdown on the first day of protests.

‘Infiltrators’

The demonstrations spread nationwide the following day as parliament and government offices were set ablaze, resulting in the government’s collapse.

During the caretaker administration, a government-backed commission into the deadly uprising recommended the prosecution of Oli and other senior officials.

Its report said it was “not established that there was an order to shoot”, but said “no effort was made to stop or control the firing and, due to their negligent conduct, even minors lost their lives”.

Oli has previously denied ordering security forces to open fire on protesters. During his failed bid for re-election in the March 5 poll, he blamed “infiltrators” for the violence.

Prime Minister Shah, 35, a rapper-turned-politician, and his Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections this month on a platform of youth-driven political change.

Shah challenged and defeated Oli in the four-time ex-prime minister’s own constituency.

At Shah’s first cabinet meeting on Friday, it was decided to implement the recommendations made by the investigative commission.