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Thousands of Nepalese flee to India: report
(DPA)

9 April 2006


KATHMANDU/NEW DELHI - More than 25,000 Nepalese have fled to India as violence escalated in the Himalayan kingdom, a news report said on Sunday.

More than 15,000 arrivals have been recorded in Kishanganj district of eastern Indian Bihar state alone, The Times of India newspaper reported quoting local sources. Another 10,000 people had arrived in Sitamarhi, another border district, the report said.

Nepal shares a 750-kilometre border with Nepal, most of it along Bihar state.

Officials said the spurt in Maoist violence and the current anti- king strike by Nepal’s opposition parties and the government crackdown had led to a situation of uncertainty prompting people living across the border to flee to India.

Indian security forces have increased their vigil along the border to check infiltration, especially of Nepalese militants, PTI news agency reported.

Meanwhile across the border, dozens of political activists and students defying a daytime curfew in the Nepalese capital were arrested on Sunday by the police, political party sources said.

Party sources alleged that police resorted to “excessive” force to quell small but symbolic protest demonstrations in at least a dozen different places in the capital on Sunday.

They alleged that the police fired at the demonstrators.

The government imposed a 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. curfew in most parts of the Nepalese capital Sunday, ostensibly to prevent rioting and arson in the capital and to maintain law and order.

Sunday was the fourth day of a general strike called by seven political parties opposing King Gyanendra’s direct rule.

Independent radio stations reported Sunday that political party activists and students staged protest demonstrations at a number of places in the capital in defiance of the curfew orders.

Local radio also reported that the demonstrators vandalized the office of the National Democratic Party (Thapa faction) in the city.

Home Minister Kamal Thapa heads the Thapa faction of the National Democratic Party.

HBC FM radio reported that a clash took place between demonstrators and security forces at Kirtipur, a sister city of Kathmandu, considered a stronghold of Nepalese communists.

The radio said the clash occurred after the police intervened to disperse the protestors.

The state-run Radio Nepal reported that a daytime curfew was imposed in the tourist resort town of Pokhara where security forces shot dead a protestor Saturday.

The body of the victim, said to be an activist of the United Marxist-Leninists, a major component of the seven-party anti-king alliance, was to have been taken around Pokhara on Sunday.

Local reports said that there were protest demonstrations in different parts of the country in support of the seven-party alliance.

The opposition is protesting against King Gyanendra’s direct rule and demand the reinstatement of the parliament that was dissolved in May 2002. They are also calling for elections to a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution.



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