KATHMANDU: The Nepal Police Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) has arrested former Bal Mandir working committee members Rajendra Kumar Shrestha (51), Om Krishna Shrestha (62), and Asha Shrestha (54) for embezzling funds meant for sheltering and educating orphaned children.

This opens a parallel investigation alongside an ongoing Rs 603.9 million land-fraud case currently moving through the Kathmandu District Court.

The arrests stem from the 2019 Hari Babu Bhattarai Commission report, recently revived by Prime Minister Balendra Shah’s government.

The report uncovered decades of systemic abuse, revealing that the charity sent 948 children abroad under international guardianship while proper files existed for only 72, with the corresponding adoption fees completely vanishing from official bank accounts.

The broader scandal involves the exploitation of Bal Mandir’s 61,000-square-meter Naxal estate.

The 2025 land case implicates the late former president Rita Singh Vaidya, who bypassed anti-corruption directives to sign an undervalued lease with Brihaspati Vidya Sadan for just Rs 900,000 per month.