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Man who escaped Nepal jail during Gen Z protests caught in Gujarat

The Nepal government compiled a list of Indian prisoners who escaped during last year’s Gen Z anti-government protests. Dharmesh Chunara was one of two from Gujarat.

2 min readJan 27, 2026 02:45 PM IST

Dharmesh Rasiklal Chunara was caught by the Special Operations Group (SOG) of Ahmedabad City Police

A Gujarat man, who was jailed in Nepal on drug charges and escaped during last year’s anti-government protests in the country, was tracked down to his home in Ahmedabad and detained, the police said on Tuesday.

Dharmesh Rasiklal Chunara, who is in his early thirties, was caught by the Special Operations Group (SOG) of Ahmedabad City Police, Sharad Singhal, Joint Commissioner of Police (JCP) (Crime), said.

In July last year, Chunara, an Ahmedabad resident who flew from Bangkok in Thailand to Kathmandu in Nepal aboard Thai Airways flight TG319, was apprehended with 13 kg of hybrid ganja worth Rs 13 crore, the police said. He was arrested and imprisoned at Bhadra jail in Kathmandu Central Jail.

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A month later, in September 2025, during the mass anti-government protests led by Gen Z youth that led to vandalism at the prison premises, a large number of prisoners escaped the central jail. Since a number of these prisoners were Indians, the Nepal government compiled a list of absconding prisoners and handed it to the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) in New Delhi. Orders were then passed down to the states, including the CID Crime unit in Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

Two people in the list were from Gujarat, both arrested on drug charges. The other person, from Surat, continues to evade arrest.

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JCP Singhal said that the SOG began looking for Chunara using technical and human intelligence. After receiving information about his whereabouts, he was apprehended at his house. His mother-in-law is also allegedly a listed bootlegger in Ahmedabad.

There is no clarity yet on the deportation proceedings following Chunara’s detention.

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