Kathmandu, July 17: Nepal police have handed over two Pakistani nationals, arrested from Hotel Jagat in Thamel on Wednesday in connection with the Mumbai blasts, to Indian police, reports said today.

The Himalayan Times quoted police sources as saying Asif Ali alias Asim Ali and Waled Mohammad alias Sajjid Ali were taken to the Nepal-India border near Bhairahawa and handed over to an Indian police team under Interpol supervision on Sunday.

The report claimed Nepal police had been tipped off about six blast suspects, based on which they had arrested Ali and Waled from Thamel and two others ? Ghulam Hussain Cheema and Aftab Muhaiddin Siddique ? from Hotel Everest at New Baneshwor. Cheema and Siddique were arrested in a five-year-old case in which about 16 kg RDX was retrieved from a rented room in New Baneshwor in 2001.

The report said the police were continuing its search for two more persons. But Dhak Bahadur Karki, superintendent of police at Kathmandu District Police Office, denied having arrested the duo from Jagat Hotel. “We have not arrested anybody from that hotel,” he told the daily.