Kapilvastu, August 19

Two protesters were injured after police opened fire on them in Taulihawa, the headquarters of Kapilvastu during today’s indefinite strike.

Joint Democratic Madhesi Front had enforced the general strike to protest the draft statute and the boundaries in the six-province federal model for the past three days. Police had opened blank fire in the air after demonstrators clashed with them in front of Kapilvastu DAO.

Punnabasi Kahar and Rajendra Mahara were injured after they received bullet shrapnel. Kahar and Mahara are being treated at District Hospital. Police had fired more than two dozen tear gas shells to bring the situation under control.

Agitators had vandalised the Tirtikhi VDC Office and set it ablaze. Furniture and documents of the VDC were reduced to ashes.

Tarai Madhes Democratic central member and CA member Brijesh Gupta, however, refuted that his party’s activists had torched the VDC office. Gupta charged that there had been infiltration in the agitation.

Police arrested 10 persons involved in enforcing the bandh in Birtamode of Jhapa. DSP Sanjay Bahadur Raut of Area Police Office Birtamode said that among the arrested were Sadbhawana Party Jhapa Chairman Surya Narayan Ganesh and Tarai Madhes Democratic Party Jhapa Chair Trinarayan Rajbanshi.

The bandh disrupted transport movement along the East-West highway. Continued bandh has crippled life in Banke.

Dozens of heavy trucks en route to Nepal have been stranded at Rupaidiha, India. Nepalgunj is facing acute shortage of cooking gas due to disruption in the import of LPG gas cylinders.

Guleriya bazaar in Bardiya remained closed due to the indefinite strike. Market places, businesses and schools pulled down their shutters in Dang.

Bandh organisers staged a rally in front of government offices in Gaur of Rautahat. Burning tyres, bandh enforcers shouted slogans against the government and the draft statute.

They laid dozens of logs along the Gaur-Chandranigahapur road section and blocked transport service. Bandh enforcers placed three trucks at Rajpur Chowk and obstructed vehicular movement in Rautahat.

Meanwhile, Rautahat district court Bar Association and Construction Entrepreneurs’ Association have expressed solidarity with the agitation.

Private and Boarding Schools’ Organisation Nepal (PABSON) and National Private and Boarding Schools’ Association (NPABSON) too have expressed solidarity with the protest in Tarai.