Six houses have been burnt down-including that of four agricultural laborers– and property worth hundreds of thousands of rupee was gutted when the Maoist rebels set fire on the house of Durga Bhusal in the mid-western district of Dang Friday night, reports said.

When the rest of the country was observing the 56th International Human Rights Day Friday, a group of over a dozen armed rebels reached the house of Bhusal at Lalmatiya VDC-4 in Dang Deukhuri in the night. They read out the verdict of ‘people’s court,’ asked the house-owner to get valuables out of the house and set fire on his two houses and also a cow-shed.

The fire, however, spread in the neighbourhood and gutted the houses of four agricultural labourers, Lakhan Chaudhary, Bhatti Prasad Chaudhary, Sunder Chaudhary and Bishnu Chaudhary. The rebels even prevented the villagers from attempting to put out fire, reports said.

34 members of five families have been left homeless and have nothing to eat and no clothes left to brave the terai winter.

Bhusal said the Maoists also looted Rs 200,000 in cash, 40 tolas of gold, around 50 tolas of silver, a motorbike, TV and freezes from his house before setting it on fire.

The fire has gutted property worth an estimated Rs one million, Kantipur daily reported Sunday. The daily has also published a photo of the scene after the fire was put out.

The victims have not received any relief and local administration or security personnel had not reached the site of incident until Saturday afternoon, reports said.

An Armed Police Force base is located at Bhalubang in the same VDC along the East-West highway, which is only a few minutes drive away from the site of incident.

The rebels have been looting properties of a number of private citizens in the district over the last few weeks. They have already looted houses of Tek Nath Gautam in Hapur VDC, Puskar Gautam, Puskar Majgaiya, Kshetra Bahadur Basnet (former mayor of Tulsipur municipality), Dilli Bahadur Khadka and paddy belonging to former Home Minister Khum Bahadur Khadka, reports said.

Tek Nath Gautam is a noted social worker and educationist known for his contribution in setting up first public school in the district during the Rana regime in the 1950s.

The rebels have targeted all these people alleging them as “feudal and exploiters,” reports said quoting the victims. nepalnews.com by Dec 12 04