Itahari, March 26 :

A group of locals, including a Maoist activist, at an all-party meeting organised to control increasing immoral activities in local hotels and restaurants, threatened to kill some journalists today.

The all-party meeting had been organised by the Itahari Area Police Office (APO) in the local Cultural Building here.

A Maoist activist, Ritesh Shrestha, present as a representative of hotel entrepreneurs along with some other participants threatened to kill the journalists if they dared write against them.

After the threat, the journalists boycotted the meet and demanded that those behind the threat be punished.

In a letter forwarded to the Itahari Area Police Office, the journalists demanded security and punishment to those persons who had threatened them.

Ritesh Shrestha and locals threatened local journalists — Shaligram Pandey, Arjun Sharma, Amar Khadka, Shekhar Adhikari, Chetan Dhamala, Krishna Bhattarai, Anil Adhikari and Santosh Yadav — in front of everybody present at the meeting, but even the police could do nothing, the journalists lamented.

Meanwhile, the Sunsari chapter of the Press Chautari Nepal and the Sunsari branch of the Federation of Nepalese Journalists FNJ) condemned the maltreatment of the journalists.

Both the organisations have warned that they will organise protests against the administration and hotel entrepreneurs if the threat-givers were not punished.

Admitting that Ritesh was a Maoist activist, a district-based leader of the CPN (Maoist) Dipak said Ritesh was taking part in the all-party meet on behalf of the hotel entrepreneurs.