Police free journalists taken from newsrooms after Shah ordered it, his aide says

Police released the journalists on Friday evening, hours after officers pulled them out of their own newsrooms in Kathmandu, after Prime Minister Balen Shah ordered them freed, his press adviser said.

This is about your right to know. The Rastriya Swatantra Party, or RSP, which leads Shah's government, itself said any attack on press freedom strikes at every citizen's right to be informed, OnlineKhabar reported. Press Council Nepal says complaints about news belong with the council, not the police.

Plainclothes officers from the Cyber Bureau and a police crime investigation office, OnlineKhabar reported, took Bishwamani Subedi of Nepal Press, Shobhraj Baral, chairman and editor-in-chief of Motivate News, and Dhiraj Basnet of DN Khabar from their newsrooms on Friday, October 30. Setopati reported police arrested those three and were searching for at least three more. Police teams also went to the offices of Naya Patrika and Diyo Post asking about journalists, Setopati reported.

Deepa Dahal, the prime minister's press adviser, said on social media that Shah had expressed concern over police entering media offices and had ordered the authorities to stop the raids and free everyone held, OnlineKhabar English reported. She said the prime minister, his secretariat and his office had no involvement and no advance knowledge of the operation, DC Nepal reported.

Communications Minister Bikram Timilsina wrote on Facebook that all detained journalists had been released and that the government is fully committed to press freedom, Nepal Press reported.

Subedi, after his release, told Nepal Press that a superintendent from the Valley Crime Investigation Bureau called him in for "tea" before taking him into custody, and called the police's conduct immature and regrettable. His long trust in the police, he said, had been shaken.

Press Council Nepal, the body legally responsible for handling complaints about published news, said police never showed an arrest warrant, never stated a clear reason, and showed no sign of having court permission, OnlineKhabar reported. Nepal Bar Association president Dr. Bijay Prasad Mishra said police entering newsrooms to detain reporters "gives a flashback of the royal regime," a reference to 2005, when King Gyanendra sent troops into media houses and imposed censorship after seizing direct power. The Federation of Nepali Journalists' general secretary, Ram Prasad Dahal, called the raids state terror.

Congress president Gagan Thapa, UML general secretary Shankar Pokhrel, and Jagdish Kharel, the RSP's spokesperson, all condemned the raids, OnlineKhabar reported. Kharel said arresting a journalist over a news story is "in neither our party's policy nor its principle."

What the coverage missed

OnlineKhabar reported, citing people close to the prime minister, that the operation was run not by Shah's office but by Police Inspector General Dan Bahadur Karki, targeting journalists who had written critical coverage of him. The outlet also cited unnamed "high-level sources" claiming Karki told subordinates the raids were on the prime minister and home minister's instruction, a claim the prime minister's office denies. Neither version is independently confirmed.

Nepal Gen-Z Front, the movement whose uprising helped bring Shah's government to power, said in a statement reported by Setopati that a government born of that uprising's demand for accountability had acted against its own mandate, and called on Shah and Home Minister Sudhan Gurung to take political and moral responsibility, and for Karki to be investigated.

What we still do not know

• Who ordered the raids: the prime minister's office denies it, unnamed sources blame IGP Karki, and neither Karki nor the Home Ministry has said so on the record.
• Under what law the journalists were held: Press Council Nepal says no warrant or court order was shown, and police have not explained its legal basis.
• Whether the government will act on Gen-Z Front's demand to investigate IGP Karki: only the Ministry of Home Affairs or the prime minister's secretariat can answer that.