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'Goodbye Kathmandu' film crew arrested, released     KATHMANDU, March 9: A film crew returning after shooting a scene of the movie “Goodbye Kathmandu” in Thamel on Tuesday was arrested by the police taking the fake guns they carried as real ones.

The incident occurred after the locals of Thamel called up the police headquarters in Shorakhutte and complained of individuals carrying arms and walking around in their locality.

Chief Assistant Director Rajesh Biswakarma and Assistant Director Kiran Paudel of the filmwere taken into custody.

“The arms looked like SLR guns. They told us they had come back after shooting a film but they had no camera and there were no actors around.

 And since we received complaints from the public, we had to take action,” said inspector Shiva Singh. He added that the team should have notified the police before shooting the scene in a tourist hub like Thamel.

After the police looked at the official papers carried by the directors, they were however freed.



According to Director Paudel, the police, however, harassed them even after knowing the truth.

 “We shot the film scene in between Baishali Hotel and Kathmandu Guest House. The traffic police stationed there had helped us control the human mass,” he said, adding, “We were returning to our van parked near Amrit Science Campus when a police van suddenly geared to a stop and started interrogating us.”

He further claimed that the police behaved badly with them and tried to confiscate their mobile phones and were verbally abused.

The film-shooting was halted after the incident.

Padam Subba, one of the producers of the film, said the directors were freed only after the police station was crowded by journalists.

Nepal Film Directors’ Association has termed the incident ‘unfortunate’ and urged the authorities to make sure that such an incident does not recur .

The directors got into trouble because of the fake guns they used in filming in one of the scenes.

The fake guns had been ordered from Hong Kong by director Nabin Subba who wanted to portray Kathmandu during the decade long people’s war in his film.

He had previously requested authorities to provide him a team of police officers with real ammunitions, but his request was turned down.

Although he couldn’t be present on the scene due to illness, his assistants shot the scene at Thamel on Tuesday.

They shot the scene where actor Karma passes by a patrolling team of police personnel.

The shooting was over in an hour and the team was leaving the shooting location when they were interrogated by the police.