Rautahat, February 21

Locals today staged a sit-in at Rautahat DDC and DAO demanding that Samanpur VDC office, which has been padlocked for the last eight months, be opened.

Activists of National Madhes Socialist Party had padlocked Samanpur VDC office eight months ago demanding dismissal of the VDC’s technical assistant Nagendra Yadav and Assistant Accountant Kameswor Sahani.

The locals staged the sit-in saying that the padlock had hit regular work, including the distribution of social security allowance, hard.

Hundreds of locals, including the NC, UML and CPN-Maoist Centre cadres took part in the agitation.

Dipen Shrestha, a local,  said that they were forced to hit the street as the local administration had been silent though the VDC office had been padlocked by a few people for months. Shrestha said the padlock had adversely affected registration of birth, marriage, distribution of social security allowance and recommendation for citizenship, among other services.

The agitators had returned home after CDO Uddaw Bahadur Thapa pledged to deploy the police to open the padlock and resume regular works smoothly pronto.