August 28: Police on Thursday took action against e-commerce companies that have been providing online delivery service for violating the prohibitory order.

Police also took the operators and staffers of such companies in custody in a crackdown that began on August 27.

The operators of the e-commerce companies were later released in the evening under the condition that they would suspend their service while the prohibitory order is in force. 

The operators of the companies were arrested from their offices while the staffers were taken under control while they were delivering essential goods.

Different teams of police on Thursday (August 27) arrested 65 staffers of the e-commerce companies.

Police took action against the staffers of Foodmandu, Foodmario, Bhojdeal, UG Cakes, Pathao among other e-commerce companies.

The e-commerce companies complained that the police arrested their operators and staffers despite the government’s announcement to allow essential services like delivery of medicines, food, gas, petroleum products, vegetables and fruits among others.

Issuing a joint statement on Thursday, stakeholders of the e-commerce companies said that the police action was against the circular issued by the chief district officers of the three districts of Kathmandu Valley while announcing the prohibitory order.

Nikita Acharya, operator of UG Cakes in this picture taken from Facebook.

Operator of UG Cakes, Nikita Acharya, informed New Business Age that she and her staffers were arrested from their office at around 5 pm on Thursday.

Similarly, operator of Foodmandu Manohar Adhikari said that seven of their staffers were arrested while they were delivering food. He said that the police then called them to the station and warned them not to operate their business.

Sailesh Lohani, the proprietor of Socheko, said that the police told them not to provide service after 9 am.

Meanwhile, the police said that they took action against the e-commerce companies because they were not providing essential services.

“The government has ordered additional measures during prohibitory order from Wednesday onwards. The local authorities have banned all other services except essential ones. We took action against the online companies because they were not providing essential services,” said police officer Somendra Singh Thakur.

“We took action against those delivering pizza, mo:mo, cakes. These do not fall under essential services,” said Thakur.