Deaths and injuries in day of protest in Nepal
Nepalese police opened fire today on tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters who defied a curfew and marched toward the capital, killing at least three and wounding dozens more, witnesses and hospital officials said.
Separately, security forces also fired on anti-king protesters in a south-western Nepal town wounding at least 26, according to the Defence Ministry.
Doctors at Model hospital in Kathmandu said three people had died and more than 40 were in critical condition, mostly with head injuries, after police fired rubber bullets and live rounds at the crowd.
Police stormed the hospital later in the evening and seized the dead bodies.
Hospital staff reached by telephone said police did not give a reason for taking the bodies.
The clash occurred in the Kalanki neighbourhood on the western edge of Kathmandu, said Kunjan Aryal of INSEC-Nepal, a Kathmandu-based rights group.
“Our volunteers have already picked up several wounded people and there are reports of many more wounded waiting for rescue,” said Aryal, whose office is in the neighbourhood.
At the nearly two dozen protests across the capital, the mood ranged from peaceful to violent.
Stretches of the main road that circles Kathmandu were littered with bricks and burning tires as police battled protesters.
At least one police post was attacked and its windows smashed by bricks.
The violence came as an estimated 30,000 people who had walked in from surrounding villages began marching along the main road into the city centre.
The group at Kalanki was among the largest of several that gathered at different entry points to the city to continue mass protests against King Gyanendra’s rule that have brought the capital to a standstill this week.
A line of policemen blocking the road into the city first tried to turn the crowd back with tear gas, and then opened fire with rubber bullets and live ammunition, witnesses said.
Reporters who reached the site at late afternoon said police and protesters were still clashing.
Police were getting reinforcements and more tear gas shells.
Some of the protesters picked up tear gas canisters and tossed them back at police.
The Defence Ministry said in a statement that security forces were compelled to open fire the protesters at Gulariya, 310 miles south west of Kathmandu, because the situation was getting out of control and it was necessary to use force.
At least 13 policemen were also wounded in the clashes with protesters.
Following the clash, a government announced over state-run television that it was extending the initial curfew by eight hours, until tomorrow morning.
The capital had been poised for confrontation today, with soldiers and police patrolling the streets as thousands of protesters from surrounding areas headed toward the city limits, where troops had orders to shoot on sight anyone breaking a curfew.
Demonstrators were marching toward Kathmandu from several directions, and thousands of people protested just outside the curfew area in the suburb of Gangabu, watched by a line of police and soldiers.
District administration officers said the curfew was necessary to prevent opposition parties from holding a huge rally, planned for today, to demand that Gyanendra loosen his grip on power.
Residents in parts of central Kathmandu came out onto their roofs, whistling and banging plates.
People used mobile phones to call each other and send text messages, trying to draw each other out for demonstrations.
“We are ready to sacrifice our lives for the nation because we are about to be killed, but we are not concerned about that,” said Sangam Poudel, a 22-year-old student. ”It is for the nation and without the nation there is no life.”
Diplomats, journalists and human rights monitors were not issued passes allowing them onto the streets today as they had been in the past.
Police tried to keep media and rights workers away from any protests, escorting some foreign journalists back to their hotels.
A foreign diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said the restriction on passes was intended to keep observers from seeing what was going on in the streets.
Still, opposition leaders met and decided to go ahead with the protest, starting with rallies at Kathmandu’s major entry points.
Gyanendra, meanwhile, met with a special envoy sent by neighbouring India at the royal palace in the heart of Kathmandu, state-run Nepal television said.
Karan Singh was in the palace for two hours, according to the report. Details of the meeting were not immediately available.
India, a burgeoning global power that does not want chaos on its doorstep, sent Singh on yesterday to press the king to reach a compromise with the parties. The parties want a new constitution that would limit – or eliminate - the monarchy’s role.
Before meeting the king, Singh met several opposition leaders.
Two weeks of often violent protests and a general strike against palace rule have paralysed the Himalayan country, leaving cities short of food and fuel and Nepal at its most volatile since King Gyanendra seized power 14 months ago.
The royal government has responded harshly, claiming that communist insurgents - now allied with the opposition – have infiltrated rallies to instigate violence. Police have beaten, tear gassed and arrested thousands of protesters.
Before today’s clash, security forces had killed at least 10 people, including some pro-democracy protesters shot dead yesterday, since the opposition launched a general strike in the Himalayan kingdom on April 6.
Yesterday, officials claimed security forces opened fire only after being shot at during an assault by brick-throwing protesters in Chandragadi, about 310 miles south-east of Kathmandu.
The government has made such claims in the past, but no shootings by protesters have been independently verified.
“The events show how desperate the present royal regime is. It is becoming paranoid,” said Dhruba Adhikary of the independent Nepal Press Institute, after yesterday’s violence. “The movement is getting popular. It is expanding and growing.”
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