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Nepal violence claims sixth victim

Posted on: Tuesday, 18 April 2006, 21:43 CDT

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - A woman who was hit on the face by a tear gas shell has become the sixth person to die in Nepal's two-week long protest campaign against King Gyanendra, officials said on Wednesday.

The woman, who was injured on Tuesday during a protest in the town of Nepalgunj, 500 km (300 miles) west of Kathmandu, died while being taken to a hospital in the Indian city of Lucknow, they said.

Hundreds of people have been wounded and hundreds of others arrested in the campaign to force King Gyanendra to restore multi-party democracy. The monarch is also under severe international pressure to relent.

One flashpoint could come on Thursday at mass rallies called by a seven-party alliance spearheading the campaign, which has vowed to bring out hundreds of thousands of people on the streets.

The United States and India, Nepal's giant neighbor, have both called repeatedly for the restoration of democracy.

King Gyanendra came under further pressure on Tuesday when three top human rights groups called for international sanctions against the monarch and top Nepali officials, accusing them of being "impervious to the suffering" of the Nepalese people.

"He (the king) and his officials have been responsible for serious human rights violations, including the arbitrary arrest and detention of thousands of critics, torture and ill-treatment of detainees ...," Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Commission of Jurists said in a statement.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is sending a special envoy to hold talks with the king on Wednesday.

The envoy, Karan Singh, is the scion of the royal family of Kashmir and is related to King Gyanendra by marriage.

"The purpose of my going there really is to meet with the king, to meet with the leaders of the political parties, to assess the general situation which, as you say, is deteriorating very rapidly," Singh told the Indian TV channel NDTV.

"It is not our intention to interfere in the internal affairs of another country but the last thing that we would want is for Nepal to dissolve into chaos because India's vital security interests are involved. Our human interests are involved, there's an open border between Nepal and India and our commitment to parliamentary democracy is there."

King Gyanendra sacked the government and assumed full power in February 2005, vowing to crush a decade-old Maoist revolt in which more than 13,000 people have died.

He has offered to hold elections by April next year, but activists say he cannot be trusted and should immediately hand over power to an all-party government.

Source: REUTERS

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