Kathmandu, February 21:

Sixty students of Masteshwori Secondary School and Saraswoti Secondary School of Doti were kidnapped by the Maoists and taken to an undisclosed location, the Ministry of Defence said today. The Maoists also abducted Sarita Magar, a teacher of Todke Primary School at Mudebas of Dhankuta.

Meanwhile, three Maoists were killed when the explosives they were carrying went off suddenly at a house in Lawoti area of Makawanpur, RSS reported.

Three women were seriously injured last night when a group of Maoists hurled a bomb into a room of a house in Jhalari VDC, Kanchanpur district, where family members of an RNA soldier, Bhawani Dutta Bhatta, were sleeping, HNS reports. The three were identified as 55-year-old Laxmi Devi Bhatta, 30-year-old Narmada Bhatta and 27-year-old Laxmi Bhatta, mother, sister-in-law and wife of Bhawani. Meanwhile, the Maoists freed 20 civilians, who were abducted on different dates and made to work in a labour camp, from Barchen of Doti district yesterday, a report from Mahendranagar said.