Itahari, September 6 :

Students affiliated to the ANNISU-R staged a four-hour sit-in and demonstration outside the Eastern Division Headquarters of the Nepali Army at Itahari today, demanding that it make public the whereabouts of 20 persons of Mechi-Koshi who went missing during the conflict. The Mechi-Koshi coordination committee of ANNISU-R organised the demonstration.

Vehicular movement on the Itahari-Dharan road section was disrupted. In a street corner meet organised alongside the sit-in, speakers said CN Dhungana, Devhari Rijal, Katak Bahadur Sangpang, Dhana Subedi, Sandhya Adhikari, VC Dhimal, Suresh Pokharel, Tara Rijal, Chaturman Rajbanshi, Uttam Limbu, Harkha Bahadur Majhi, Deepak BK, Umesh Shah, Chiranjivi Gautam, Pushpa Bhandari, Surendra Magar, Padam Rai, Gopal Dangal, Dataram Timsina and Tanka Tamang of Mechi-Koshi were spirited away by the state during the conflict. Mechi-Koshi coordinator of ANNISU-R, CP Kadariya warned that another stir would be launched if the whereabouts of the missing were not made public. Sources said students from different schools of Sunsari were forced to participate in the ANNISU-R sit-in.

Suman Nepal, a student of Janata Secondary School, said they were forced by ANNISU-R activists to participate in the sit-in. Chairman of ANNISU-R, Sunsari Jeewan Bhattarai, however, denied the charge.