Rautahat, Aug. 23 -- When a team from the Gaur district police office called Om Giri of Chandrapur-5 in connection with a dishonoured-cheque case, he expected to be summoned to court. Instead, officers met him on the roadside on June 1, collected his Rs500 fine, and let him go. The next day, police issued a statement describing him as a fugitive who had been arrested.

"They collect the money from you on the roadside and then report that they arrested you as a fugitive," Giri said. "That damages a person's reputation."

Giri's case is one of several Kantipur identified in which Rautahat police collected court-ordered fines from people at their homes, shops, or on the road, then publicly reported the transactions as fugitive arrests, even ...