SSP Sarbendra Khanal Interview

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Despite repeated attempts to acquire magisterial powers and to act as a quasi-judicial body, the Metropolitan Police has remained a ‘toothless’ entity for over a decade.Designed under the urban policing concept and established in 2007, the Metropolitan Police in Kathmandu Valley, has been functioning only as a coordinating body for police units.“We were supposed to have quasi-judicial and magisterial powers but stakeholders in the government and the bureaucracy were not in any position to give us the ‘teeth’ to maintain law and order in the Valley,” AIG Pratap Singh Thapa, chief police commissioner, said at a function marking the 11th Metro Police Day in Kathmandu, Wednesday. Several reports have been prepared with government stakeholders and experts to realize the metro police concept but these have remained useless, he stressed.The police leadership has been raising issues such as authorizing political gatherings and protests, imposing curfews when necessary, exercising preventive detention powers, and licensing hotels, lodges, massage parlours and entertainment businesses, among other things. As per the metro police concept, police in the Valley have also sought an end to the dual command system.

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