Nepal, Nov. 4 -- The government's decision to remove Dan Bahadur Karki as Inspector General of Nepal Police (IGP) and appoint him as the Prime Minister's security adviser on Wednesday may have come as a surprise, but it followed weeks of mounting tensions surrounding the police leadership.

Additional Inspector General Manoj KC has been appointed as the new police chief, while Karki has been reassigned to the Prime Minister's Office. Although the government has described the move as a change of responsibility rather than disciplinary action, a series of controversies, disagreements and political considerations had increasingly weakened Karki's position.

At the centre of the tensions were disagreements over the handling of high-profile i...