Kathmandu, May 25, 2007

The government today formed a commission to probe the Tarai unrest and the Gaur massacre of March 21. The massacre alone had left 27 persons dead.

This decision was taken after a cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister’s official residence at Baluwatar after nearly a month-and-a-half of deadlock on cabinet meets. Today’s decision addresses the demand raised by the CPN-Maoist and other outfits and lawmakers from the Tarai. “The cabinet today decided to set up a commission headed by Supreme Court judge Khila Ram Regmi.

There are  four other members in the commission,” Minister of State for General Administration Ram Chandra Yadav told this daily. The four members of the commission are: Raj Narayan Pathak, Sukh Chandra Jha, Sahadev Bastola and Ravindra Pratap Shah. Pathak is Joint Attorney General, Jha Deputy Chief of National Investigation Department, Batola District Court Judge of Siraha and and Shah is the DIG of Eastern Region.

The commission will be given a month to submit its report. It may get an extension at the end of the month if the task is not finished by then. Regmi told this daily that the commission would start working from Sunday. The cabinet refrained from taking any decision on the issue of Melamchi. “The decision on Melamchi has been delayed pending an eight - party meeting scheduled for tomorrow,” Minister Yadav said, adding that Melamchi project required a political decision by the ruling alliance.

The cabinet also took some bureaucratic decisions since it had met after a long break.

Cops rain lathis, Moriarty’s car talks under cloud

Agitating teachers who were staging a sit-in in front of the Ministry of Education and Sports today clashed with the police, jeopardising the talks between the representatives of the protesting unions and the authorities scheduled for tomorrow.

More than 80 persons were injured in police lathicharge on the demonstrators who were trying to burn the effigy of Minister for Education and Sports Pradip Nepal. The police even had to fire at least 18 teargas shells at Keshar Mahal chowk and Ratnapark to disperse the protesters.

The police said they had to act after the agitators mercilessly beat up a man saying he was a vigilante. “When we tried to rescue the man, they pelted stones at us,” a police official said. After the incident the agitating Nepal Educational Republican Forum, Institutional School Teachers Union and the student unions organised a chakka jam from 3 pm to 5 pm.

The representatives of the ministry, school management and the agitating teachers and student unions were preparing for talks to end the stalemate prevailing for the past one-week.