Nepal Police began seeking help from the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) to find the suspended captain of Nepal's national cricket team, Sandeep Lamichhane.
District Court Kathmandu has assigned an arrest warrant against Lamichhane on the charge of raping a minor. The process of issuing a red notice through Interpol for his search has been initiated. Security agencies of the 195 member countries of Interpol will search for him if the notice is issued.
According to a senior officer of Police Head Office Naxal, Interpol's National Control Bureau (NCB) Kathmandu has started the process of issuing a red notice at the request of District Police Complex Kathmandu.
"If the arrest warrant had not been issued by the court, we could have proceeded with the process for diffusion," he said, "but since the warrant has been issued by the court, we have started gathering documents to issue a red notice by mentioning additional evidence found during the investigation."
Police head office sources informed that NCB Kathmandu will correspond with Interpol headquarters in France in a few days. "Based on the letter sent from here, the final decision about the notice will be taken by the Interpol Secretariat," said the officer.
Lamichhane went to Kenya to play the T20 series on August 6. Allegedly, the night before that, he took a 17-year-old girl to a hotel in Pingalasthan, Kathmandu, and raped her.
The victim mentioned in her complaint that he himself went to pick her up near the hostel in central Baneshwar. She further mentioned that he took her to Nagarkot, Bhaktapur on the pretext of having lunch, and returned late. When they arrived in Kathmandu, it was already 10:30 pm and Lamichhane told her to stay in the hotel saying that the hostel would be closed.
On August 21, the minor filed a complaint against Lamichhane, saying that he raped her several times in the middle of the night.
After the allegation, the cricket captain stated his innocence in a Facebook status and informed that he is going to come to Nepal to respect the law. However, he has been out of contact since then.
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