Capital braces for another day of protests, forces on high alert

Kathmandu, Apr 23 (UNI) With no signs of the political stalemate in the Himalayan kingdom abating, protestors are gearing up for another day of protests to force the King to accede to their demands for democracy.

According to reports, protestors are concentrating outside the Ring Road area, outside of the curfew jurisdiction. Meanwhile, authorities again imposed a sudden 11-hour curfew from 0900 hrs this morning, while mobile networks, cut off since last afternoon, are still off the air. Sources said the decision was taken to forestall communication between the agitationists, after the authorities yesterday intercepted some text messages asking people to head toward the Narayanhity Palace.

Stark silence pervaded the stately Rajdurbar Marg leading to the palace, with the only vehicles seen on the empty streets being that of armoured personnel carriers carrying armed troops, police vehicles with heavily equipped riot police and the private vehicles ferrying a large number of journalists covering the situation here.

Most of the protestors are people from outside the Kathmandu Valley, with the people of the capital largely seen as 'neutral' to the ongoing struggle. ''People here, and other urban areas fear that if the protests lead to the exit of the King, the Maoists could take over, which they consider an alarming prospect,'' informed sources told UNI. There is also a fear that Maoist cadres may have infiltrated the agitating crowds.

Though the top leaders of the seven-party alliance are not actually leading the protestors, local leaders from the various parties constituting the grouping are present on the step. Apart from the activists owing allegiance to the Nepali Congress, a large number of Communist Party of Nepal members are taking part in the protests.

The situation is extremely fluid with no signs of either the King or the political parties taking any step to resolve the imbroglio after the latter yesterday rejected the King's offer to transfer power to the people. The parties are holding firm to their stand of : revival of the Parliament, which will then nominate an interim all-party government and announcement of elections to a Constituent Assembly -- also a long-standing demand of the Maoists -- to draw the insurgents into the mainstream.

''We will continue our peaceful agitation till our demands are met,'' Minendra Rijjal of the seven-party alliance asserted.

Yesterday's protests --which were dampened by the rain and the police action -- were quite sobering, in-so-far as the crowds came quite close to the palace, before the police managed in dispersing them with tear-gas shells and rubber bullets. About 250 people were injured including four with serious wounds and are being treated in various hospitals. Sources said the large number of casualties was also due to the stampede that ensued when the large crowd, numbering many thousands, broke up in disarray.

UNI VD PR BD1330