This story was printed from channelnewsasia.com

Title : Nepal again relaxes curfew imposed over Iraq hostage riots
By :
Date : 05 September 2004 1422 hrs (SST)
URL : http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/105045/1/.html

KATHMANDU : Nepal further eased a curfew imposed last week to quell rioting in Kathmandu sparked by the killing of 12 Nepalese hostages in Iraq.

The 10-hour let-up in the curfew was to allow people to buy food and get on with their normal business, the home ministry said. Authorities had relaxed the curfew for eight hours on Saturday.

The curfew has been in place in Kathmandu and Lalitpur on the southern outskirts of the capital since Wednesday to stop angry mobs that had attacked mosques and Muslim businesses.

Police opened fire to disperse an angry crowd that tried to storm the Egyptian embassy, which represents Iraqi interests in the Himalayan kingdom after 12 Nepalese youths were killed by Islamic militants who had held them hostage since August 19.

At least two persons were killed while over 50 were injured in the clashes between demonstrators and riot police.

There were no reports of violence overnight Saturday, police said.

People were seen walking to the markets to buy food and other essentials, witnesses said.

Armed police and soldiers patrolled the streets of Kathmandu while security was heightened in sensitive areas of the capital, witnesses said.

Nepal's king, the prime ministers and religious leaders also appealed for restraint and for the situation not to get out of hand.

Nepal, the world's only officially Hindu state where 86 percent of the population is Hindu, has experienced little of the inter-religious violence that has scarred neighbouring India.

Muslims account for around four percent of the 27 million population.

A statement claiming the killings was posted on an Islamist website by an Al-Qaeda-linked group called the Army of Ansar al-Sunna.

It was accompanied by grisly pictures of the beheading of a blindfolded hostage and one where his bloodied head was held up like a trophy by a hooded captor. A video showed the other Nepalese being shot.

- AFP




Copyright © 2003 MCN International Pte Ltd
<< back to channelnewsasia.com