A daytime curfew was slapped on a part of southern Nepal yesterday after at least 26 people were killed and dozens injured in brutal clashes between an ethnic group and Maoists, officials said.
"We have asked for more police officers from the neighboring district, and they will arrive this afternoon," said Ram Kumar Khanal, police superintendent of Rautahat district, about 90km south of Kathmandu.
`Bloodbath'
"The situation is now under control," he said, adding that locals were banned from venturing outside their homes from the morning until mid-afternoon to prevent a repeat of what local media have described as a "bloodbath."
The violence occurred in the town of Gaur, close to the border with India and dominated by the Mahadhesi ethnic group, whose activists have been staging a series of violent protests and strikes since January.
The unrest has left some 60 people dead since then.
The ethnic group has been pushing for greater representation in national politics in the wake of a peace deal between the Maoists and central government that was signed four months ago.
The leader of a Maoist group in the area said that Wednesday's clashes erupted when the Maoists and rivals from the Mahadhesi People's Rights Forum (MJF) tried to hold mass meetings at the same venue.
"The MJF vandalised our stage and then attacked us," said Matrika Yadhav, the chairman of the Maoist-affiliated group, who blamed the "MJF, royalists and Hindu fundamentalists."
Pre-emptive
"We think it was a planned attack. They had guns and khukuris," Yadhav told said, referring to Nepal's traditional large, curved knife.
The Maoists have accused embattled King Gyanendra of orchestrating ethnic violence in the south in order to undermine a peace deal expected to result in the landlocked Himalayan nation being declared a republic.
An MJF leader confirmed that only Maoists were killed, but accused the former rebels -- who were supposed to have locked up their weapons as part of the recent peace deal with the government -- of opening fire.
"None of our activists were killed. All the dead are Maoists killed by local people who support our organization," said Upendra Jha, a member of the MJF's central committee.
"The Maoists opened fire first to disturb our program, and angry activists from our organization fought with them," he said.
The violence in the southern plains, known as Nepal's bread basket, has cast a cloud over the country's peace deal which officially brought an end to 10 years of civil war.
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