• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Scores wounded as Nepal police fire on protesters

Posted on: Saturday, 22 April 2006, 14:10 CDT

By Raju Gopalakrishnan

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepali police opened fire and used teargas on Saturday to confront more than 100,000 anti-monarchy protesters who defied a curfew and marched toward King Gyanendra's palace in the center of the capital.

The police opened fire in at least two places and fired teargas repeatedly to push back protesters just 500 meters (half a mile) from the palace, witnesses said.

Political parties said about 150 people were wounded. About 100 were brought to one hospital alone, doctors said.

"Most of them have been hurt by teargas or in a stampede as they fled," said Dr. Rajesh Dhoj Joshi at the Kathmandu Model Hospital. "But some have bullet wounds."

Marchers, waving branches and red communist flags, broke into the city as a seven-party alliance spearheading a democracy campaign rejected overtures by the king to form a government.

Previously, in more than two weeks of protests, demonstrators have been held at the outskirts.

"The proclamation has no meaning," said former Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala of the Nepali Congress, the largest party in the alliance, referring to Gyanendra's broadcast on Friday saying he was restoring political power to the people and asking the alliance to name a new prime minister.

The king appeared to rule out any change of the constitution to curb his powers. Political parties have demanded elections for a constituent assembly, which would draft a new constitution.

"The royal proclamation is a sham," protesters in Kathmandu shouted as they threw tree branches, scrap and rocks across roads to block vehicles.

Mobile phone services in Kathmandu were cut soon after the marchers entered city limits, apparently to prevent protest organizers from communicating.

Truckloads of armed police ringed the city center as the marchers, young and old, were dispersed, only to try to regroup. But rainfall in the afternoon saw the marchers head for cover.

Troops with automatic weapons and backed by armored cars took up position around the palace as helicopters flew overhead.

12 KILLED, HUNDREDS WOUNDED

The top diplomat of Nepal's giant neighbor India said it was up to the Nepali to work out ways to revive democracy.

"We support the views of the seven-party alliance that the restoration of peace and multi-party democracy is the need of the hour," Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran told reporters in New Delhi.

"We believe that the sentiments of the people of Nepal should be respected."

The king sacked the government and took full powers in February 2005, vowing to crush a decade-old Maoist revolt in which more than 13,000 people have died.

The seven-party alliance has been agitating since April 6 to force Gyanendra to restore multi-party democracy. In all, at least 12 people have been killed and hundreds wounded in police action against protesters since then.

The impoverished kingdom has been virtually at a standstill with the movement of goods and people blocked by a general strike and crippling street protests across the nation.

In a statement on Sunday the Maoist rebels, who are loosely allied with the alliance, called Gyanendra's statement "a show of feudal arrogance and an insult to the great human sea that has taken to the streets."

MARCH TOWARD PALACE

Several thousand protesters broke out from the Thamel tourist area in the heart of the city on Saturday and tried to march toward the palace, just about a kilometer away.

"It started very peacefully and we just joined the back of a very long procession," said Ian Chalmers, a tourist from Hertfordshire in England. "Suddenly teargas shells rained in."

He said he had not heard gunshots in the commotion but later saw two people slumped on the street, either wounded or overcome by gas.

One man was hit on the chest with a teargas shell and was severely wounded, Joshi, the doctor said.

"We thought he was dead. But after 15 minutes, he began to show signs of life."

As he spoke, ambulances came in regularly carrying the wounded, who were quickly examined before being taken in for treatment or left lying on mattresses on the floor to be tended to later.

Gyanendra came to the throne after the 2001 palace massacre when his elder brother, Birendra, was killed by his own son, the Crown Prince Dipendra.

Source: REUTERS

More News in this Category