NTV tower in Hetaunda destroyed in blast

Dhankuta, January 18:

The Maoists abducted 50 students of the local Singha Devi Secondary School at Basantatar Village Development Committee-2 yesterday.

A group of four Maoists took away the students for a local programme, local students said. The students of grades 7, 8 and 9 were taken away yesterday without any notification to the school administration and the guardians, chairman of Guardians’ Association, Dilip Subba, said.

The Maoists were also ready to take away the grade-10 students but they were left alone as their sent-up exams were near, school sources said. Among the abducted students are Suman Subba, Laxmi Khadka, Suraj Limbu, Tek Rani Limbu and Tirtha Kumari Katuwal.

The locals said the Maoists had also abducted students and teachers from other schools at Chaubise and Chulachuli regions.

Meanwhile, a report from Tanahun said the Maoists had abducted 35 students from two schools situated at Rupakot VDC on Monday and taken them to an unknown location.

The abducted students were studying in grades 9 and 10 in Rastriya Secondary School and Tribhuvan Higher Secondary School, sources said.

A group of Maoists detonated a bomb in the office building of ward number 2 and 4 of the Prithivi Narayan Municipality last night, causing minor damages to the office, a report from Gorkha said. Windowpanes of the nearby houses belonging to Kiran Shrestha and Thakur Singh Thapa were shattered due to the explosion.

The site of the blast is located at a distance of 400 metres from the Company of the Royal Nepalese Army.

The Maoists had detonated a bomb in Dhungagade Bhanjyang in the afternoon. It was the first blast carried out by the Maoists in Gorkha after the end of the ceasefire.

A group of Maoists detonated a bomb in the Repeater Tower of Nepal Television at Hetauda Municipality-9, Lamsure, this evening, destroying the tower and the tower building, a report quoted eyewitnesses as saying.

All transmission equipment of the tower have been destroyed in the blast, bringing transmission of programmes aired through Nepal Television to a complete halt.

The Maoists carried out the blast after overpowering the only employee stationed at the tower, Raghu Khulal, a local, said. The Maoists had come in a bicycle at around 5:30 pm, the eyewitness said.

A new building of the repeater tower was built at Lamsure after the Maoists destroyed the repeater tower in Hupra Chaur of Hetaunda two years ago.

The station, which had begun operating only eight months ago, was responsible for transmission of Nepal Television in Makwanpur, Bara, Parsa, Chitwan, Rautahat and other districts of the mid-terai. Security men reached the site late in the evening, a security source said.

A 70-year-old resident of Bawawara VDC-3 was injured when a Maoist-set bomb went off in Badaharwa VDC, along the Guar-Gangapipara road section of Rautahat district, this morning, a report said.

Anutha Shah was hurt when the bomb went off while he was picking up a bamboo stick that was fixed on the ground along with the bomb, his son Rajendra Shah said. The locals are terrified because there still are two bombs near the blast site.