Nepal: Police Race Against Time to Recover Gold and Money Swept Away by Floods - Sarmad
Nepal police are racing against time to locate gold and bank safes swept away by the catastrophic floods that recently ravaged the country, in a daunting mission to prevent money and gold from falling into the wrong hands.
Alongside the search for hundreds of missing persons following the sudden floods that struck Nepal, the country’s police face an extremely difficult task: tracking down and securing safes from at least 20 banks that were swept away by flash floods, fearing they might fall into untrustworthy hands.
Officials stated that some of these safes contained large sums of cash and valuable items.
Abhi Narayan Karki, Deputy Inspector General of Police and spokesperson for Nepal Police, said that the highest priority under the current difficult circumstances remains the search for the missing. However, maintaining public order in the affected areas remains an indispensable necessity.
Karki explained that banks in Rasuwa, Dhading, Chitwan, and other areas suffered severe damage due to the floods, noting that flash floods had swept away or buried numerous safes under thick layers of silt. These safes held money and precious items, including gold.
He affirmed that police officers are doing their utmost to locate and secure these safes, pointing out that incidents have occurred where individuals breached safes swept away by water and stole the money inside.
In this regard, Dhading district police arrested 29 people on suspicion of stealing the equivalent of 9.2 million Nepalese rupees from a safe swept away by water from the upper Rasuwa area.
The police spokesperson stated that his officers managed to secure a safe belonging to a branch of the Agricultural Development Bank in the town of Trishuli, Dhading district, on Sunday evening, although the operation took about eight hours.
According to Karki, that safe contained 15 million Nepalese rupees in cash, along with valuable items including gold worth 500 million rupees. Police also secured another safe belonging to Krishi Bikas Bank in the Nuwakot district, which similarly contained money and gold.
The spokesperson added that approximately 8,000 personnel have been deployed in search and rescue operations in the affected areas, noting that 25 police officers are now listed as missing due to the disaster, while the bodies of three of them have been recovered.
China Central Television reported today, citing Nepal Police, that the death toll from a landslide in northern Nepal last week has risen to 1,056 people.
