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| Tuesday, 3 February 2004 |
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Maoists kidnap 192 students and teachers in western Nepal KATHMANDU, Monday (AFP) Nepal's Maoists have abducted a total of 192 school students in western Nepal in recent days and are forcing them to undergo military training, witnesses and officials said. Ramesh Pokharel, a teacher at Bajura district, 340 kilometres (212 miles) west of Kathmandu, said 104 school students and some teachers were taken by the rebels last Thursday from a school in Rameswori village to an unknown location. Another 88 students were abducted from a school in Pujyatala village in Achham district, 360 kilometres (225 miles) west of Kathmandu on Friday, a village official said. Home Ministry spokesman Gopendra Bahadur Pandey confirmed that a number of students had been kidnapped but was not immediately able to provide details. The security forces had been sent to rescue the abducted students, Pandey said. Following the abductions, some 45 lower secondary schools in western Nepal have been closed to prevent further such incidents, he said. Village officials claim the boys and girls are rounded up by the rebels and taken to camps for military training and "communist orientation". "The Maoist force is dwindling sharply and is needing to recruit more (people) to reinforce their fighting groups," a former Maoist brigade commander said recently. The rebels have been fighting for a communist republic in Nepal since 1996 and the uprising has so far claimed more than 9,000 lives. Meanwhile Nepal's political opposition said it had been driven to issue a general strike call by the king's use of the security forces to suppress their anti-monarchy protests. Five parties represented in Nepal's now-disbanded parliament have jointly called for a general strike throughout the Kathmandu valley in protest at what they claim are police atrocities against activists who have been staging demonstrations against the king in recent weeks. "We have no other option but to hold a 24-hour general strike on Monday in the Kathmandu valley to shift our ... anti-king movement to the people's level," the leader of the People's Front Nepal (PFN), Lilamani Pokharel, told reporters. |
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