Thaindian News

Kathmandu, April 27 (IANS) Nepal’s trigger-happy former crown prince Paras Bir Bikram Shah, who became the first member of the erstwhile royal family to face arrest and detention, was let off with a light warning by officials Wednesday after a potential attempted murder case against him fizzled out with the alleged victim developing cold feet.

Amidst cheering by triumphant supporters, the 39-year-old’s brush with the law ended with little damage for him as the district administration chief who heard the dispute in last winter Wednesday ordered Paras to tender a written apology within 35 days.

Though the playboy former prince with a penchant for picking up fights in public places was not present in the Chitwan district administration office in southern Nepal Wednesday to hear the district chief, Basanta Raj Gautam, deliver his verdict, his lawyers were told since it was the errant former prince’s first crime, he would be let off with a warning not to repeat it.

Gautam also said Paras would have to turn up in his office within 35 days to tender a written undertaking that he would not repeat his crime. Else, he could also appeal against the sentence.

The mild rap on the former royal’s knuckles was the fallout of a gun row in December.

Paras, while celebrating his daughter’s birthday at the famed Tiger Tops jungle resort in southern Chitwan district, picked up a quarrel with a fellow holiday maker and reportedly fired a shot in the air while under the influence of alcohol.

Unfortunately for the headstrong former heir to Nepal’s throne, the man he chose to quarrel with was the son-in-law of the then deputy prime minister Sujata Koirala and on her party’s insistence, police arrested Paras and kept him in detention for almost 72 hours.

But the victim, Bangladeshi national Rubel Chaudhary, got cold feet and retracted his earlier statement that Paras had threatened him and fired a shot in the air.

Chaudhary’s backing out of the row was partly due to reports in a section of the media alleging that he was masterminding a telecom racket run by a Bangladeshi gang that cost Nepal a loss of millions of rupees.

With Chaudhary refusing to press charges against Paras, the case against the former prince became weak and the district authorities had neither the evidence nor the nerve to pronounce a stiffer sentence.

Paras had turned the row into a nationalistic issue, accusing Chaudhary of insulting Nepalis, an allegation the latter denied.

(Sudeshna Sarkar can be contacted at sudeshna.s@ians.in)