Nepalese church bomber faked repentance

Ram Prasad Mainali

The chief of a militant Hindu extremist group disguised his extortion and terror activities from behind bars by claiming he had repented of bombing a church in Nepal and showing interest in Christianity, reported Compass Direct News.

The revelation emerged when Nepal’s premier investigation agency foiled a plot to explode a series of bombs devised by Ram Prasad Mainali, former chief of the Hindu militant outfit Nepal Defence Army, in the capital city of Kathmandu.

On March 4, police arrested six cohorts of Mainali carrying powerful home-made bombs and high-explosive powder, to be used as part of a plan to extort money from industrialists, The Himalayan Times reported.

In an interview last year, Mainali told Compass that his interaction with Christians inside jail in Kathmandu’s Nakkhu area had led him to repent from his deeds and read the Bible.

Mainali was arrested on Sept. 5, 2009, for exploding a bomb in a Catholic parish in Kathmandu, Our Lady of the Assumption, which killed a teenager and a newly married woman and injured more than a dozen others on May 23 of that year.

A local Christian worker who had known Mainali said the church bomber used Christianity to evade police surveillance. “I was disheartened when I recently learned that Mainali had threatened some pastors with violent attacks [by phone], demanding protection money from them,” he told Compass on condition of anonymity.

You can read the full report here.