Rupandehi, January 22:

At least ten students were injured when police intervened a students’ rally today.

The police intervened the rally which included a bull and chanted slogans against the municipal polls. The rally organised by the Joint Struggle Students’ Committee began from Butwal Multiple Campus but was immediately intervened by the policemen when they tried to burn symbolic ballot boxes at the BTI chowk.

About a dozen students including Dal Bahadur Bhandari, Rajendra Dhakal, Madhav Neupane, Mahendra Giri, Tulsi Ghimire, Krishna Pandey, Yubaraj KC, Deepak Rana, Yogesh Kharel, Bikram KC and Yamlal Acharya were injured in the scuffle, leader of the All Nepal National Free Students Union, Baburam Panthi, said.

Seven students including Prajapal Giri, Mukti Poudel, Yamaraj Pandey, Kehav Bhandari have been detained at the area police office Butwal, police said. A bull, with a placard reading I am a municipal election candidate; Caste vote for me; Make the election a success, was taken through the thoroughfares of the town, said NSU leader Prajapal Giri.

The police fired at least 40 cells of teargas to disperse the demonstrators, students leaders said.

Following the police high-handedness on the students’ demonstration, the seven political parties staged a protest rally by carrying black flags. The rally went around the city.

In a corner meeting held after the rally, Yubaraj Giri of Nepali Congress, Gopal Prasad Shrestha of Nepali Congress (Democratic), Laxmikant Poudel of Janamorcha highlighted on the significance of the people’s movement. Butwal remained tense all the day.

A meeting of the Joint Struggle Students’ Committee, held later in the evening, called a general strike in Butwal on Monday. Meanwhile, different students’ organisations staged demonstrations in Birgunj to protest against the arrest of the leaders of the agitating parties and cadres.

Birgunj remained tensed througout the day. The students and police clashed for two hours following the arrest of local leader of the NSU, Santosh Gupta. The situation calmed after the police released him after six hours in detention.

Earlier, the agitating students clashed with the police for hours on the road in front of

the Thakurram Campus at Adarshanagar. The students burnt tyres at Maisthan, Ghantaghar, Adarshanagar, Bypass. They were also urging the people to boycott the municipal election. They vandalised the two buses of the Jyoti Spinning Mill and one of Dabur Nepal in the morning.

Following the incident, bazaar, transportation, educational institutions remained completely shut.

Meanwhile, in Dharan, police arrested 15 students who were protesting against the arrest of top leaders in the capital, today.

The students had disrupted the road by burning the tyres. Some students were injured in the clash with the police, Binay Basnet of the NSU, said.

Also today students clashed with the police when the former was organising a home visit campaign to call people to boycott elections 13 and 14 of Dharan Municipality.

Nobody was arrested from the campaign.

On the occasion, the students, in addition to urging the people to boycott the municipal poll, called on all to make the Nepal bandh on January 26, a success.

Likewise, Nepali Congress Sunsari district chairman Ram Bahadur Basnet said the party’s home visit programme against the municipal polls would begin in Inaruwa Municipality from tomorrow.

The home visit campaign will also be organised in Itahari Municipality, Murari Subedi, district member of the CPN (UML) in Sunsari, said.