Kathmandu, April 9:

Two major organisations involved in the observation of Constituent Assembly election today sent separate teams to Surkhet and Dang to find out the truth behind the killing of a CPN-UML candidate in Surkhet and seven Maoist cadres in Dang yesterday.

The National Election Observation Committee (NEOC) and the National Election Monitoring Alliance (NEMA) have deployed separate teams to the incident sites.

Issuing a press statement, NEOC said its attention has been drawn to the killing of Rishi Prasad Sharma, a CPN-UML candidate from Constituency No 1 of Surkhet, and killing of seven Maoist cadres in Dang yesterday. NEOC strongly condemned the killings.The mid-western regional office of NEOC in Nepalgunj deployed the teams to Surkhet and Dang to find out the facts, the statement adds.

Meanwhile, a group of civil society members, including Daman Nath Dhungana, Shyam Shrestha, Stela Tamang and Prof Birendra Mishra, left for Nepalgunj to assess the situation in Surkhet and Dang.

NEOC termed the killings and violence as only a ploy to disrupt the CA election and urged the government to initiate immediate action to penalise the perpetrators by impartially investigating the incidents. “We urge the political parties and their cadres to refrain from anti-election activities,” the statement adds.

NEMA also sent two teams, including members from other election observation organisations, journalists and human rights activists, to Surkhet and Dang.

In a press release, the alliance stated that UML candidate Sharma was shot twice in the abdomen while he was heading to Mehelkuna from Maintada yesterday evening. NEMA also stated that Gopal Sunuwar and Bhupendra Chand of Mehelkuna and Khadga Thapa of Chhinchu were killed in the violence this morning.

NEOC has appealed to all to create conducive environment for the polls tomorrow. It has appealed to all voters to participate in the election and inform the observers if anybody finds violation of election code of conduct.