Nepalese police firing tear gas and rubber bullets clashed yesterday with thousands of pro-democracy protesters who defied a curfew despite warnings that violators could be shot, opposition parties said.
A second death was reported among demonstrators demanding that King Gyanandra give up the absolute powers he seized 14 months ago.
Home Minister Kamal Thapa said 253 people had been arrested yesterday and blamed the protests on Maoist rebels.
"The ongoing protest program is clearly that of the Maoists," Thapa told reporters. "They are trying to create armed revolution, so the government has been compelled to impose the curfew."
In Kathmandu, a spokesman for one of the sidelined political parties that organized the protest against Gyanendra said thousands of people were on the streets in small pockets despite the curfew and tight security.
Dozens of protesters were injured, including a 17-year-old man hit by a rubber bullet allegedly fired by police in the capital, said Rajendra Pandey, of the Communist Party of Nepal. A doctor at the Kathmandu Hospital had earlier confirmed the shooting.
In Boudha on the outskirts of Kathmandu, around 1,500 protesters demanded the restoration of democracy and chanted anti-royal slogans. Others blocked roads throughout the capital with burning tires while police used tear gas to disperse them, a police officer said.
"We are trying to resist and contain them," said the police officer, who did not want to be identified.
In the southwestern town of Bharatpur around 2,000 protesters clashed with police firing tear gas after a woman died overnight from injuries sustained in a demonstration, Narayan Sharma, a local journalist, said by phone.
"Protesters rained stones on police and they responded by firing tear gas," Sharma said.
It was the second day of violence in Bharatpur, 220km southwest of Kathmandu, after thousands went on a rampage on Saturday.
The death, reported by a hospital spokesman in the town, was the second in four days of protests called by a seven-party alliance in concert with Maoist rebels. It was set to end yesterday.
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