A day after police issued an arrest warrant against him, former deputy inspector general Nawaraj Silwal said he would not cooperate with the probe, claiming that it was biased against him.

Demanding an “independent panel” to investigate the claims of forgery against him, Silwal, who was recently elected to the House of Representatives on the CPN-UML ticket, said such a panel should consist of people other than those officials who were not contestants for the IGP post.

“We found that the probe panel had used a document lifted a news portal as a piece of evidence in the court,” he told the Post over the phone from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

He dismissed claims that he had fled to Malaysia to escape the possible arrest.

“I was attending a scheduled programme of Asian Institute of Technology here when the arrest warrant was issued.”

Silwal said he would return home “after the programme is over”, but would not specify the date.

The Nepal Police had issued the arrest warrant against Silwal on Tuesday for interrogation into the case related to fake performance appraisal report.  

The Kathmandu police launched an investigation on Silwal on December 20 after the Supreme Court directed the government to take action against those involved in forging his performance evaluation report. Following the directives from the court, Nepal Police headquarters had handed the case to the range.

The apex court in the full text of its decision on a case related to appointment of the police chief has suggested discrepancies between the performance evaluation reports presented by the Public Service Commission and petitioner Silwal, and that a thorough investigation and action were required against those involved in document forgery.

The current investigation is a vengeance on him sought by Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and IGP Prakash Aryal, Silwal said.

“I was in Kathmandu until a few days back. And now, all of a sudden police are creating media hype after learning that I am abroad,” he added. “The current investigation and charges against me is a mockery of rule of law.” 

Senior Superintendent of Police Ganesh Ayer, chief of Lalitpur Police, said they will present Silwal for further investigation once he returns home. “We have confirmed that he is out of the country at the moment. Once he arrives, we will arrest him,” said SSP Ayer.

It is learnt that police have been deployed at his houses in Godavari and Balkumari.