More than 100 visually-impaired persons were arrested and several others injured as police intervened into their protest rally, demanding employment, in Kathmandu on Sunday.
Hundreds of visually-impaired persons joined a protest rally organised by Visually-impaired Persons’ Group which started from Bhrikuti Madap this afternoon but they were interrupted by the police when the rally arrived at Padmodaya Mod. Participants of the protest rally said police used excessive force to disrupt the peaceful rally.
Police ruthlessly beat up the demonstrators, injuring a number of participants. Two injured persons – Bhakta Gautam and Pratibha Lama – have been taken to a nearby hospital for treatment, according to the members of the group.
The group has been demanding that the government offer jobs to 500 visually-impaired persons at the earliest and provide a monthly ‘unemployment allowance’ of Rs 2,000 to others.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Organisation of Nepal (HURON) in a statement condemned the police intervention into the visually-impaired persons’ peaceful rally and demanded that the arrested persons be freed immediately and unconditionally.
Maoists detonated a bomb at the Survey Office in the eastern town of Biratnagar Saturday night.
Parts of the office building, located near Koshi Zonal Hospital, were destroyed in the blast that occurred at around 11:00 p.m., reports said. No human casualty was reported in the incident as nobody was inside the building.
The rebels have carried out series of bombings in government installations in Biratnagar and other eastern towns since last few days.
His Majesty King Gyanendra unveiled a full-sized statue of late king Birendra erected at the Shanti Ban Batika premises in Naya Bazaar of Pokhara amidst a function, Sunday.
Her Majesty Queen Komal was also present on the occasion.
Minister for Education and Sports Radha Krishna Mainali, Vice-Chancellor of Tribhuvan University (TU) Dr Govinda Prasad Sharma, Chairman of TU Service Commission Samarthya Bahadur Singh, Registrar of TU Gita Bhakta Joshi, and Regional Administrator Chhatra Bikram Shah welcomed their Majesties at the program venue upon their arrival.
Addressing the function, Vice-Chancellor Dr Sharma informed that there were plans to establish two halls at the Ban Batika for peace studies and intellectual activities.
The statue, erected in 1989 to commemorate the late king’s zone of peace proposal, was sculpted by noted sculptor Amar Chitrakar.
Their Majesties have been in an informal visit of the western region for the past two weeks.
A team of Asian and European mountaineers is set to embark on an expedition to the Mount Everest to clean up the garbage piled up on the slopes of the world’s highest peak.
Leader of the team, Han Wangyong of South Korea, told a press conference in Kathmandu on Sunday that mountaineers from Japan, South Korea, France, Italy and Australia are set to climb Mount Everest during this spring season– beginning April.
“We will try to collect as much as five tons of garbage from higher camps,” Wang-yong, who has scaled over a dozen highest peaks around the world, said. He informed that his team planned to climb to the South Col at 8,000 meters, which is littered with tents, food packaging, ropes and other equipment.
Nepali Sherpa guides will be helping the team in the clean up campaign, he said.
The team members, according to Han, are all volunteers who would also be taking up the cost of their trips and that the names of the participants are yet to be finalized. He was of the view that most climbers didn’t care about the piling rubbish on the mountain.
With an estimated 50 tons of rubbish piled up on the slope, Mount Everest (8,848 meters) is considered one of the most ‘polluted’ peaks around the world. Several clean-up campaigns have already been conducted on the peak in recent years.
At least 18 passengers were injured when a packed bus overturned on the Prithivi Highway at Jamune VDC in Tanahun district Sunday afternoon.
The passenger bus plated Ga 1 Kha 5035 was on its way to Kathmandu from Baglung, reports said.
The injured passengers have been taken to Damauli Hospital, Tanahun, and the Western Regional Hospital in Pokhara for treatment.
Latest reports from the eastern district of Ilam say the Maoists have launched a major attack in the district headquarters, Ilam Bazaar.
A local journalist told Nepalnews over the phone that “thousands of Maoists” launched coordinated attacks on key government installations including the District Administration Office and the District Police Office from around 9:30 p.m. on Sunday.
Huge blasts could be heard over the phone. The security forces and the Maoist guerrillas are engaged in firefights in different parts of the town, he said.
The rebels are also engaging the Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) forces, he added.
The attack is the latest in the eastern region while the rebels have carried out bombings in several government offices in recent days.
Police arrested at least 11 persons, who were carrying out dharna (sit-in protest) at the premises of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) demanding that the rights body pressure the government to reveal the whereabouts of involuntarily disappeared persons, Sunday evening.
Police intervened into the dharna at around 10:15 p.m., dragging the protesters out of the NHRC premises and whisking them in police vans. Police also beat up some of the protesters after they refused to court arrest, participants of the protest told reporters.
Janma Dev Jaisi, Rajmati Maharjan and Gyan Prakash Rai were along those arrested. It is not known where the arrested persons have been kept.
Family members and relatives of persons who have gone missing after being arrested by security forces on different dates have been carrying out dharna at the NHRC premises since last few days, demanding that the government immediately make public the condition of the missing persons.
In the afternoon, NHRC chairman Nayan Bahadur Khatri told a press conference that the protesters had been creating ‘disturbance’ in the activities of the commission.
Even as the government has periodically publicized the whereabouts of over 500 involuntarily missing persons, human rights groups believe there are still hundreds of others detained incommunicado in government’s detention centers.
Hundreds of women took out a rally on Saturday calling for immediate ceasefire and initiation of peace talks.
The rally coordinated by Shantimalika, started from Basantapur Durbar Square and went around to Byaphal, Indra Chwok, New Road and concluded at Durbar Square.
Participants of the rally also asked for equal participation of women in the policy making level.
Women from over two dozens organization took part in the rally.
The international community including the European Union, the United Kingdom and the USA has also been urging the government and the Maoist rebels to declare ceasefire and initiate peace talks.
Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh and US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.
Bhutanese political parties in exile and organisations of the Bhutanese refugees have formed a common platform called “Bhutanese Movement Steering Committee (BMSC)” under the chairmanship of veteran Bhutanese human rights leader, Tek Nath Rizal, to continue their 15-year-long agitation for the repatriation of the refugees, according to reports.
The first meeting of the BMSC held in eastern Nepal dissolved the umbrella organisation of the Bhutanese refugees, Bhutanese Refugee Representative Repatriation Committee (BRRRC).
Earlier, the BRRRC had led the agitation programmes related to the Bhutanese refugees, but some parties and other organisations had launched separate programmes.
Meanwhile, addressing a meeting of the refugee community in Khudunabari camp on Friday, Rizal thanked all the refugees for providing him opportunity to work for their cause and added that everyone needed to cooperate to continue their peaceful movement.
“We can achieve our goals only if we work together. Be assured that we will definitely go back to our homeland,” said Rizal– who was imprisoned for over a decade by the Wangchuk regime in Bhutan for calling for establishment of democracy and human rights in the country.
Over 100,000 Bhutanese refugees of Nepali origin are languishing in the seven UNHCR-maintained camps in eastern Nepal for the last 15 years. There have been over a dozen rounds of bilateral talks between Nepal and Bhutan in as many years, but to no avail.
The government on Friday reduced the wholesale prices of pertrol, diesel and kerosene by 28 paisa, 55 paisa and 32 paisa respectively.
The Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) has urged the dealers to adjust the retail prices accordingly.
With the new decision, the ex-depots prices of petrol, diesel and kerosene have gone down to Rs. 63.95, Rs. 50.47 and Rs. 45.52 per liter respectively for Kathmandu.
The NOC on February 17, hiked the retail prices of diesel by Rs 7, price of kerosene by Rs 6 and price of petrol by one rupee per liter.