Former Nepal prime minister KP Sharma Oli was arrested on Saturday along with former home minister Ramesh Lekhak, opening a high-stakes criminal investigation into whether the pair failed to prevent the deaths of dozens of people during the September 2025 anti-corruption protests that convulsed the country and reshaped its politics. Police spokesman Om Adhikari confirmed the detentions, saying both men were being held in Kathmandu and would be produced before a court on Sunday, a working day in Nepal. The arrests came less than 24 hours after Balendra Shah, the former Kathmandu mayor and rapper-turned-politician better known as Balen, was sworn in as prime minister following a sweeping election victory for his Rastriya Swatantra Party. That timing has sharpened the political significance of the case, placing the new administration under immediate pressure to show that its promises of accountability will extend beyond campaign rhetoric. Reuters and AP both reported that public fury over the protest deaths was a major factor in the collapse of Oli’s government and in the rise of Shah’s insurgent movement.
At the centre of the case is a panel report released this week that recommended prosecution of Oli for negligence, arguing that he failed to act to stop hours of firing on demonstrators. The same report also held Lekhak and then police chief Chandra Kuber Khapung responsible. According to Reuters, the panel said 76 people were killed and 2,522 injured during two days of unrest, while AP reported more than 2,300 injured. Reuters also noted that the government had earlier put the death toll at 77, a discrepancy that underlines how contested the official record remains even as investigators move towards criminal proceedings.
Investigators appear to be focusing especially on the first day of the crackdown, when at least 19 Gen Z protesters were killed. The commission’s finding, as reported by Reuters, is that Oli as head of government did not take action to halt the firing despite the scale of the violence. That allegation is politically explosive in Nepal, where questions of command responsibility have often been blunted by coalition bargaining and elite compromise. This time, however, the country’s electoral map has shifted sharply, and the old assumptions of impunity may be harder to sustain.
Oli’s camp has pushed back hard. His lawyer, Tikaram Bhattarai, told Reuters the arrest was unlawful and unnecessary because there was no risk of flight and no basis for custodial detention merely for questioning. Oli himself had earlier dismissed the panel’s findings as character assassination and hate politics. Those arguments are likely to frame the legal and political defence ahead, especially if prosecutors try to convert the commission’s recommendations into a full criminal case. Legal experts cited by Reuters cautioned that the report is not itself a charge sheet and that police investigations must be completed before formal charges can be filed in court.
That legal distinction matters. The commission has recommended penalties of up to 10 years in prison for those found guilty, but Nepal’s criminal process still requires investigators to establish evidence and prosecutorial grounds case by case. Even so, the symbolism of a four-time prime minister being taken into custody is profound in a country where political leaders have rarely faced swift personal consequences for state violence. AP reported that several trucks of riot police carried out the arrests at the homes of the former leaders before taking them to the Kathmandu District Police Office, a show of state authority that the new government will present as proof that no one is above the law.
The broader backdrop is a generational revolt against corruption, weak governance and economic frustration. The protests on 8 and 9 September 2025 left government buildings, police stations and politicians’ homes under attack from angry crowds, while senior leaders were forced to flee by helicopter, according to AP. Within days, Oli was out, and Nepal entered a transition period under Sushila Karki, the retired Supreme Court judge who became the country’s first female prime minister before elections were held. Shah’s party then won 182 of 275 parliamentary seats in the 5 March vote, giving Nepal one of its clearest anti-establishment mandates in years.