Extortion duo who threatened pastors in Nepal detained by police

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

KATHMANDU, NEPAL (ANS) -- Police in Nepal have detained two members of an extortion racket who have been threatening to blow up pastors’ churches and kill their families if they failed to pay up.

A cow enjoys his protected life in a Kathmandu street

According to UK-based Barnabas Aid (www.barnabasfund.org), a number of pastors in the Kathmandu Valley have been threatened in this extortion scheme.

Binod Kumar Tamang (29) of Kathmandu and Ramesh Pariyar (23) of Gorkha were caught in the act of extorting money from Sundar Thapa, chairman of the Federation of Nepali Christians and pastor of a church in Samakhusi.

Barnabas Aid went on to say that they had repeatedly threatened to blow up Sundar’s church and kill his family if he did not pay the demanded sum of two million rupees (US$22,500).

Tamang and Pariyar had issued bombing and kidnapping threats to other pastors in the Kathmandu Valley in their extortion campaign.

Fearful that the threats would be carried out, the victims sought help from the police.

Tamang and Pariyar have been charged with attempted kidnapping and extortion.

A Barnabas Aid partner in Nepal said that Christians face harassment in many forms, and expressed concern that the two detained men would be released.

“Outright violence against Christians in Nepal is rare, but there have been a few incidents in recent years,” said the partner. “The Nepal Defense Army, an extremist Hindu group that wants to reinstate the country’s Hindu monarchy, has detonated a bomb beside a Christian mission agency in Kathmandu, blown up a church in Lalitpur, killed a pastor and attacked other Christians.”

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Dan Wooding, 71, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 48 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS) and was, for ten years, a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC. He hosts the weekly “Front Page Radio” show on the KWVE Radio Network in Southern California and which is also carried throughout the United States. The program is also aired in Great Britain on Calvary Chapel Radio UK and also in Belize and South Africa. Besides this, Wooding is a host for His Channel Live, which is carried via the Internet to some 192 countries and also provides a regular commentary for Worship Life Radio on KWVE. You can follow Dan Wooding on Facebook under his name there or at ASSIST News Service. Dan has recently received two top media awards -- the "Passion for the Persecuted" award from Open Doors US, and one of the top "Newsmakers of 2011" from Plain Truth magazine. He is the author of some 44 books, the latest of which is "Caped Crusader: Rick Wakeman in the 1970s." To order a copy, go to: http://www.amazon.com/CAPED-CRUSADER-Rick-Wakeman-1970s/dp/1908728302/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335474883&sr=1-1 . Wooding, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, has also recently released his first novel “Red Dagger” which is available this link.