KATHMANDU: The Special Committee on Supervision, Integration and Rehabilitation of the Maoist combatants led by Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal today asked the PM to come up with a political consensus on the “number, modality and ranking” of the Maoist fighters to be integrated into the security forces.

The eight-member Special Committee meeting held at the PM’s office in Singha Durbar asked the PM to first reach a consensus on the three issues. The committee has, however, agreed in principle, to complete the integration process within 112 days from the start of the work as proposed by the PM.

“We have asked the PM to forge a consensus with major parties on the number, modality and ranking of the Maoist combatants before starting the integration process,” Barshaman Pun “Ananta,” one of the members of the committee, said at the end of today’s regular meeting.

He said the committee had assigned Dr Ram Sharan Mahat and Ishwor Pokharel, both committee members, to sort out the three key issues at the political level. Emerging from the meeting, Dr Mahat also said the issues should be settled first at the political level. Asked to clarify on the modality, Ananta said the political leadership should first reach an agreement on whether the combatants should be integrated into the Nepali Army, Armed Police Force and Nepal Police or a separate security wing should be created to adjust the agreed number of combatants.

In a meeting with the PM on Thursday, Nepali Congress president GP Koirala, who is also the coordinator of the High-level Peace Mechanism, is said to have advised the PM to create a separate security wing to adjust the combatants. However, it was unclear what kind of a security wing Koirala was talking about. Ananta said they also asked the PM to find a consensus on the “rankings” of the combatants after their integration into the national forces.