Nepal's ruling Maoist party on Thursday denied any links with the shooting in India's business capital Mumbai city on Tuesday that left an aide of wanted terrorist Dawood Ibrahim's younger brother dead.
Mumbai police arrested two men for the gunning down of Arif Sayed, the driver of Iqbal Kaskar, and said one of them claimed to have been a member of Nepal's Maoist party in the past. The arrested Nepali shooter, Indra Bahadur Khatri, reportedly told police he had taken part in the armed insurrection waged in Nepal by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and had received arms training while fighting the "People's War".
"There is no such man in our party," Maoist MP and spokesman Dinanath Sharma said, refuting the reports in the media. While some of these reports said Khatri was a member of the Maoist party in Nepal, some speculated that the murder plot was hatched in Nepal.
Nanda Kishore Pun, the chief of the Maoists' People's Liberation Army (PLA) said the PLA did not have any such combatant. Since 2006, when the Maoists signed a peace accord, the PLA combatants were confined to 28 camps and their arms were locked up. According to a UN verification, the PLA has nearly 20,000 fighters who are waiting to be either inducted in the national army or be rehabilitated. In 2008, the Maoists took part in a historic election and became the largest party in parliament. Currently, they are the dominant partner in an alliance led by communist chief Jhala Nath Khanal.