Lalitpur, November 2:

The Valley Special Bureau of the CPN-Maoist and employees of the Lalitpur Sub-Metropolitan City (LSMC) today cleaned major city areas within the LSMC.

Some 700 Maoist cadres were engaged in the fourth day of the five-day cleanliness drive.

Maoists, who had reached the Lagankhel bus park in the morning, were surprised to see the bus stand clean. Employees of the LSMC had cleared the garbage lying around the bus park and cleaned the entire area early in the morning.

Volunteers assembled at the bus park from where they spread out to different parts of the city after a roll call.

Secretary of the Lalitpur District Committee of the CPN-Maoist, Dipesh, said 95 per cent of the city area of the LSMC is clean now.

City in-charge Rekha said four teams, including three battalions of the valley brigade of the People’s Liberation Army and the Lalitpur district committee, were deployed for the campaign today.

Today’s drive focussed on the Lagankhel area with different teams cleaning the Satdobato-Gwarko, Lagankhel-Mahalaxmisthan, Lagankhel-Jawalakhel and Lagankhel- Mangalbazar-Pulchowk areas.

Rekha said the locals and vendors also helped clean the areas. She also said that the locals were very much excited to see a large number of people involved in the campaign. “They also accused the municipality of not helping the locals when they demanded it provide resources to clean the city,” she said.

She said the Maoists will be organising a different campaign at Chhampi tomorrow to create awareness among the people about their works.

The Maoists had cleaned the Chabahil area yesterday, the Thamel area on Tuesday and Balaju on Monday. They would clean the city areas of Bhaktapur tomorrow.

“A new programme would be announced after the completion of this sanitation campaign,” said Sagar, the commander of the Dinesh-Ramji Brigade of the PLA.

He said they had to launch such programmes because the ‘old-regime’ was unable to manage garbage in the valley. “We have completed our Crime Control Operation and are now involved in other welfare programmes,” he said.