Bandh called by students cripples life in Birgunj

Birgunj, January 24:

Public life in Birgunj was crippled today due to a bandh called by the agitating student unions to protest against “police high-handedness” during a student demonstration in Thakur Ram Campus yesterday.

The agitating students also vandalised a vehicle of the Royal Nepalese Army (RNA). According to the District Police Office, students vandalised the jeep with the registration number Na 1 Ka 8098 which was parked in front of the Nepal Telecom office at Ghantaghar. The jeep belonging to the District Education Office was being used by the RNA from the past one year. The students also destroyed a temporary police post at Maisthan.

No vehicles except some bicycles and rickshaws were seen on the roads of the city.

Earlier in the morning, the students took out a rally from the Campus calling on all to make the bandh a success.

The students also took out rallies from different places this afternoon.

The locals were terrified due to the possible clash between the police and students.

A large number of security forces had been deployed in the city in the morning. Even though the agitating student unions had not called an educational strike, teaching/learning process remained halted in most of the schools and colleges.

Police had fired many rounds of tear gas shells on the premises of the campus and beat up students in the campus hostel yesterday. Meanwhile, the seven agitating parties took out a rally this afternoon. The rally later converged into a meting at Ghantaghar. The participants of the rally distributed pamphlets urging people not to cast their votes in the upcoming municipal polls.

Meanwhile, the Birgunj-based Nepal Telecom disrupted the prepaid mobile phones in Birgunj from yesterday evening.

The prepaid mobile phones were disconnected at 9 pm. Lalit Kumar Das, chief of the Birgunj Telecom Office said the network was disconnected from the central office due to technical problem and it is being fixed up.