At least 28 persons including five women have been killed in the Gaur incident on Wednesday when activists of Maoists and Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (MJF) clashed with each other.

Twelve bodies were found at the major clash site at the Rice Mills ground in Gaur while fifteen more bodies were discovered in Hajmaniya and Mudhbaliya VDCs – four kilometers away from Gaur city in Rautahat district. Another dead body was found at Sisruwa area of Gaur municipality.

The incident occurred after 1 pm at the Rice Mills ground where both the Madhesi Mukti Morcha affiliated with the Maoists and MJF had planned to hold their separate mass meeting.

In the afternoon, the MJF and Morcha had taken out separate rallies in Gaur city. After their rally entered the ground, the MJF activists vandalised the podium erected by Morcha, says reports. Later when Morcha activists entered the ground, they also vandalised the MJF’s podium. Both podiums were some 100 meters apart. Reports say that after the Morcha activists started vandalising the MJF podium, fierce clash occurred and there was indiscriminate firing. Over 40 persons have been injured in the incident. Most of the dead and injured belong to Morcha, say reports. Injured have been taken to hospitals in Bharatpur.

Some unconfirmed reports say that Jwala Singh faction of Janatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha (JTMM) has owned up responsibility for the shootout.

Police officials said they were trying to confirm the identity of those killed in the incident.

Both the Maoist-affiliated Madhesi Mukti Morcha and the MJF had planned their mass meetings in the same area. The MJF had planned to hold the meeting in the area a week ago while the Maoists later decided to hold their meeting in the same area. Maoist lawmaker Prabhu Shah and MJF chairman Upendra Yadav were to address their respective mass meetings.

The local administration clamped curfew from 2:45 pm (Wednesday) till 4 am Thursday in Gaur after the violence. The local administration has further announced indefinite curfew after 9 am on Thursday.

MJF’s vice president Kishore Kumar Bishwas has been quoted as saying that the incident occurred after the Maoist activists tried to disrupt their pre-planned programme.

On the other hand, Prabhu Shah, general secretary of Maoist-affiliated Morcha has claimed that majority of those killed in the incident were common people. MP of the interim parliament Shah has told media that five of the dead were members of Young Communist League (YCL) while seven were Morcha activists. He has also said there was no clash in the incident. The Kantipur daily has quoted senior Maoist leader Dr. Baburam Bhattarai as saying that the incident was a calculated conspiracy against his party. “This is another Doramba. It is the conspiracy of regressive forces to push the Maoists back to jungle,” he said.