Nepal clamped a curfew on the capital after four protesters were shot dead and many more were wounded yesterday, witnesses said, in the worst violence of a campaign to end the king's absolute rule.
In a bid to thwart a mass rally planned for today, the authorities declared a curfew on Kathmandu and issued orders to shoot violators on sight.
"The curfew has been imposed from 2am until 8pm due to security reasons," said Kathmandu's chief administrator, Shushil Ghimire. "Anyone found violating curfew orders will be shot on sight."
PHOTO: AP
The rally in defiance of a ban on public meetings would mark the start of the third week of a general strike that has crippled Nepal.
"We knew that it was going to be violent," government spokesman and minister of communications and information Shrish Shamsher Rana said of the planned protest.
"We have discovered a huge cache of explosives and the Maoists were planning to use human shields to create violence. They have been forcing people to join in the protests," he charged.
However Nepali Congress party secretary Shobhakar Parajuli vowed the rally would take place.
"The state has taken every step to repress our movement," he said. "On Thursday we will not remain silent, we will defy the curfew order and stage the demonstration as scheduled."
The latest killings raised the death toll among protesters to 10 during a fortnight of general strikes and pro-democracy rallies. They came as Indian envoys arrived with a crisis message for the embattled King Gyanendra.
Local journalists at the scene said they saw at least four people killed on the spot during clashes at the town in far eastern Jhapa district, close to the border with India.
Firing began after thousands of people tried to enter the town center in defiance of a ban on public meetings, the witnesses said.
Indian special envoy Karan Singh arrived in Kathmandu with the scene set for more street battles today in the capital -- and for a diplomatic showdown between mighty republican neighbor India and the absolute monarch in Nepal.
However, a court did release the leader of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) and another veteran politician yesterday. General Secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal, a key figure in Nepalese politics, had been held since January, first under house arrest and then in a police cell.
In Pokhara, security forces detained at least 250 teachers who defied a curfew, a witness said.
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