KATHMANDU, Nepal — Nepal police arrested former energy minister and Nepali Congress leader Deepak Khadka on Sunday as authorities advanced a money-laundering investigation tied to cash found after his residence was torched during Nepal’s September 2025 Gen Z protests, March 29, 2026. The move followed a formal request from the Department of Money Laundering Investigation and came after forensic testing confirmed that debris collected from the site included burnt banknote fragments.
According to The Kathmandu Post’s report on Sunday’s arrest, the Central Investigation Bureau took Khadka into custody after the money-laundering department asked police headquarters to detain him for further investigation. The same report said the inquiry grew out of images and videos that surfaced after Sept. 9, 2025, when protesters vandalized and set fire to the residences of Khadka, former prime ministers Sher Bahadur Deuba and Pushpa Kamal Dahal.
Why the Deepak Khadka arrest matters now
The Deepak Khadka arrest matters beyond one politician because it lands as Nepal’s post-protest accountability drive gathers speed. Reuters’ report on Balendra Shah’s swearing-in described a new government built on a landslide win fueled by anti-corruption anger, while Reuters’ report on former Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s arrest showed how quickly that climate has translated into action in separate protest-related cases. The Kathmandu Post’s explainer on the Karki commission’s recommendations said the panel called for criminal investigations over the deadly crackdown, even as responsibility for the second day of arson and vandalism remained less clearly assigned.
A months-long burnt-cash trail
The trail behind this case did not emerge overnight. Republica reported Sept. 21 that investigators had begun collecting evidence from Khadka’s and Deuba’s residences after videos showed cash inside the fire damage. A Sept. 28 report by The Kathmandu Post said the department had opened a formal money-laundering inquiry. By Oct. 17, The Kathmandu Post reported that investigators had widened the effort to seek bank, property, company and transaction records tied to senior political figures and their relatives. Then Republica reported Nov. 17 that forensic tests had confirmed traces of Nepali and foreign currency in the ashes, giving investigators a firmer evidentiary base.
Sunday’s arrest does not resolve the allegations, but it does mark the clearest escalation yet in the Khadka case, which has moved from viral footage to evidence collection, asset tracing, forensic confirmation and now detention for investigation. That sequence gives investigators a far more structured record than they had when the controversy first exploded across social media in September.
