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| Saturday, 25 October 2003 |
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Maoist rebels bomb home of govt minister, 13 killed KATHMANDU, Friday (AFP) Thirteen people were killed in Maoist violence in Nepal, while rebels attacked a minister's house and a hydropower project despite announcing they would no longer target the country's infrastructure, officials said. Defence ministry sources said 11 rebels were killed in several armed encounters with the army and police on Tuesday and Wednesday. During one of the clashes a police head constable was killed in southwestern Nepal Wednesday morning, the source said. The Maoists also shot dead an insecticide dealer Tyabeswore Sah in Birgunj town, 220 kilometres (136 miles) south of Kathmandu Wednesday, police said, because he had refused to give money to the rebels. The home of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Minister Sharbendra Nath Shukla was bombed and destroyed Wednesday night, a home ministry spokesman said Thursday. "A group of 14 Maoist rebels travelling on bicycles forced all the family members of the minister out of the house situated at Pharena village in Rupendahi in western Nepal and planted a powerful cooker bomb inside," spokesman Gopendra Bahadur Pandey told AFP. The rebels also set fire to a tractor and mud-built servant quarters in the minister's compound causing a total loss of 2.5 million rupees (33,785 dollars). Also on Wednesday an agricultural development project at Shivagan Village Development Committee (VDC) in Jhapa district, 390 kilometres (242 miles) southeast of Kathmandu, was blown up causing ten million (135,000 dollars) worth of damage. The Maoist rebels also bombed a 200-kilowatt micro hydropower project on Tuesday evening at Martadi in the western Bajura district in far western Nepal, leaving 500 households without electricity, the home ministry spokesman said. "A group of ten armed Maoists attacked the power plant, completely damaging important equipment," he said. The incidents came despite an announcement Tuesday by Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, alias Prachanda, that the guerrillas would no longer carry out political killings or destroy public utilities or infrastructure. |
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