Kathmandu, August 3:

Students affiliated to the Nepal Students’ Union (NSU) today announced a nation-wide protest programme over the “unconstitutional” arrest of former prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, former minister Prakash Man Singh and student leaders.

According to the protest schedule, traffic in the Valley will be blocked from 9.30 am to 10.00 am tomorrow. All campuses nation-wide will protest with black flags on Sunday. A Valley-wide black-out will be held from 7.45 pm to 8.00 pm on August 12. A torch rally will be held on August 16.

Talking to the media, NSU chairman Thakur Singh Rathour said the protest programmes would continue till they could force the king to correct his “unconstitutional” step. “This protest is for the establishment of complete democracy and termination of totalitarian power,” he said. “This is a warm-up practice for taking a ‘be or not to be’ kind of movement in which people from all walks of life will participate for restoration of democracy,” he said, adding that the union has demanded a Constituent Assembly and will demand a Republican state.

Rathour also demanded the release of student leaders Gagan Kumar Thapa, Pushpa Kumar Shahi, Saroj Kumar Thapa, Narayan Bharati, BP Regmi, Lekh Raj Joshi and Krishna Bahadur Rawat and others, who were arrested in protest programmes against the government’s plan to publish portraits of the royal family in students’ textbooks.

He also said the former ministers were innocent and had been charged under political bias.