Nepal grinds to a halt as rebel blockade bites

KHATRI POUWA, Nepal, Mar 14 (Reuters) Soldiers carrying automatic rifles patrolled key highways in Nepal today but normally busy roads were all but deserted as an indefinite blockade of the capital by Maoist rebels began.

Piling pressure on King Gyanendra, who seized power last year, the rebels are attempting to cut hill-ringed Kathmandu off from the rest of the country, a move criticised by political parties who have said it will only hurt ordinary Nepalis.

''We patrol the roads and escort the trickle of vehicles that are running,'' said a soldier in battle dress in the roadside village of Khatri Pouwa 30 km west of Kathmandu.

''There would be a stream of vehicles on other days,'' he said.

''As you can see the road is almost empty now.'' As he spoke three girls played on the highway that snakes through rolling hills towards Kathmandu.

The Maoists, fighting to overthrow the Hindu monarchy and set up a single party communist republic, have ordered the closure of all roads to the capital, disrupting the movement of people and goods to the city of more than 1.5 million.

In the past, rebels have largely relied on fear and intimidation to enforce their blockades but have also set up roadblocks and attacked vehicles.

''I have to go to Narayanghat but don't know whether I will get any bus at all,'' said 55-year-old Sesh Nath Bhattarai sitting desolately next to a backpack at an empty roadside bus stop.

Narayanghat is a town in the southern plains.

In Nagdhunga, a key entry point to the capital, traffic was almost non-existant with just a handful of motorcycles heading for Kathmandu by late afternoon.

''On a normal day about 1,700 vehicles enter Kathmandu,'' police officer Krishna Prasad Luintel said.

Residents in Nepalgunj and the tourist town of Pokhara in west Nepal, and the key business towns of Butwal and Birgunj in the southern plains, said trucks and buses had been locked up in garages and roads were empty of vehicles.

''It is quiet but peaceful,'' journalist Bikram Niraula, said from the commercial centre of Biratnagar, 550 km (340 miles) east of Kathmandu.

Police said there were no reports of violence.

Referring to her recent speech in the Lok Sabha during the course of budget discussion, the PDP Chief said she pleaded for the significance of economic self-reliance for Jammu and Kashmir. ''The status of the state, which it enjoys as per the instrument of accession, has been eroded from time to time after 1947 and the adverse results in the shape of polarisation on economic and political front are quite clear,'' she said and stressed the need for addressing the problem keeping in mind the ground realities.

Ms Mufti expressed the hope that broader consensus would be evolved on her party's self-rule concept. The concept was the most practical solution to assuage the feelings and encompassed both political and economic aspirations of the people of all regions and shades of opinion in Jammu and Kashmir, she added.

The PDP Chief said economic progress and the well-being of the people of the state should be the important constituent of any solution or package.

About the recent developments, Ms Mufti said at the recently held round-table conference in New Delhi, the PDP delegation presented to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a memorandum, which contained the broad contours of the concept.

The main facets were restoration of status of the state as per the instrument of accession, declaring Jammu and Kashmir as a free trade zone, compensation of losses suffered due to the Indus Water Treaty, handing over internal security to local police, transferring Salal and Uri hydel projects to help the state get out of energy crises and FDI in key areas so that socio-economic profile improved.

UNI