Nepal’s former prime minister, K P Sharma Oli, was arrested on Saturday as police investigate whether he was negligent in failing to prevent dozens of deaths in a crackdown on Gen Z-led anti-corruption protests last September, officials said.

Oli’s arrest, which his lawyer said was illegal and sparked protests by supporters who clashed with police, followed rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah’s swearing in as prime minister on Friday and a recommendation by a panel investigating violence during the protests that he should be prosecuted for negligence.

His former home minister, Ramesh Lekhak, was also arrested.

Seventy-six people were killed last September during a police crackdown on protesters demanding an end to corruption, more jobs and cleaner politics, leading to Oli’s resignation.

After his arrest on Saturday, supporters staged protest rallies and clashed with police who tried to stop them burning tyres near the prime minister’s office. Police lobbed a teargas shell and used batons to break up the protests, injuring one person, witnesses said.

Oli’s Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) called his arrest illegal and said it was an act of “revenge”. It demanded his immediate release and said more protests were planned for Sunday.

Home Minister Sudan Gurung dismissed the criticism, saying: “It is the beginning of justice. The country will take a new direction now.”

Election defeat

Oli was prime minister four times between 2015 and 2025 but never served a full five-year term. In 2020, he published a new political map including in it a small stretch of disputed land controlled by India, giving him a popularity boost in Nepal.

His popularity did not last, and he was beaten by Shah in his home constituency in an election this month, his second defeat since the restoration of multi-party democracy in 1990.

Anger over the deaths in September’s protests helped Shah’s Rastriya Swatantra Party win the election by a landslide.

The panel investigating last September’s violence held Oli and Lekhak responsible for not taking any action to stop hours of firing on the protesters by police.

Police spokesperson Om Adhikari said Oli and Lekhak would be brought to court on Sunday.

Oli, 74, who has had two kidney transplants, has been transferred to a hospital from the police office where he was first taken, witnesses said.

His lawyer, Tikaram Bhattarai, told Reuters that the arrest was unwarranted and would be challenged in the Supreme Court.

“They have said it (the arrest) is for investigation. It is illegal and improper because there is no risk of him fleeing or avoiding questioning,” he said.

Lekhak and his lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment.