KP Sharma Oli Arrested: Nepal's New PM Balen Shah Acts

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Former Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and ex-Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak taken into custody over the September 2025 Gen Z shootings — as Home Minister Sudan Gurung declares: “This is not revenge. This is the beginning of justice”

By TRH World Desk

New Delhi, March 28, 2026 — Nepal’s new government has moved with striking speed — and its first act has sent the country’s political establishment into shock.

Within hours of its first cabinet meeting, the government led by Prime Minister Balendra Shah — the rapper-turned-mayor whose rise to the top of Nepali politics stunned the establishment — ordered the implementation of the Karki Commission report into the deadly Gen Z protest crackdown of September 2025. By early Saturday morning, two of Nepal’s most powerful political figures were in custody.

The arrests

According to a report by República, CPN-UML Chair and former Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli was apprehended by a team from the Kathmandu Valley Crime Investigation Office at his residence in Gundu, Bhaktapur. Former Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak was simultaneously arrested by the Kathmandu District Police Range from his own home — held responsible, alongside Oli, for the shooting incident that took place in Baneshwor, Kathmandu on September 8, 2025, during the Gen Z movement.

The commission, led by former Special Court Chair Gauri Bahadur Karki, had directly implicated both men. Home Minister Sudan Gurung held continuous discussions with the heads of Nepal’s security agencies throughout the night before the arrests were carried out, República reported.

“The beginning of justice”

Home Minister Gurung was unequivocal in framing the government’s intent. Taking to social media on Saturday, he wrote: “A commitment is a commitment. No one is above the law. We have taken former Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and former Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak into custody. This is not revenge against anyone, but the beginning of justice.”

Gurung expressed confidence that Nepal is now set to move in a new direction.

UML fires back

The arrests triggered an immediate and furious response from the CPN-UML. Party Secretary Mahesh Basnet issued a warning through Facebook shortly after the cabinet decision became public, describing the government’s move as “controversial and conspiratorial.”

Basnet alleged a double standard at the heart of the implementation: that the government was forming a study committee to examine the commission’s findings as they related to security personnel, while moving directly against political figures — specifically the then-prime minister and home minister. “If, in the name of implementing the Karki Commission report, the government attempts arrests or political revenge, it will not only falter at the very beginning but also risk pushing the country back into conflict,” Basnet said, calling such action unacceptable under any circumstances.

He also demanded accountability for those who, in his telling, instigated the September protests — including those he alleged forced schoolchildren onto the streets — and for the arson and vandalism that targeted Parliament, Singha Durbar, the Supreme Court, and private property during the unrest.

What it means

The arrests represent the most dramatic opening act of any Nepali government in recent memory. Balen Shah — who spent his mayoral tenure deploying bulldozers against Kathmandu’s entrenched interests — has now deployed the state’s legal machinery against the man he defeated to become prime minister.

Whether this marks the beginning of genuine accountability for the deaths of Gen Z protesters, or the opening shot of a new cycle of political score-settling, is a question Nepal will be debating for weeks. What is not in question is the signal the new government has chosen to send — loudly, immediately, and without waiting.

In Nepal’s fractured political landscape, few expected the first cabinet meeting to end with a former prime minister in handcuffs.