Eleven wounded in fresh Nepal violence

KATHMANDU, Jan 21 (Reuters) Eleven people including six policemen were hurt in separate incidents in Nepal involving the Maoists just days after the former rebels joined the political mainstream by entering parliament, officials said today.

The policemen were wounded when 200 Maoists, carrying batons and stones, attacked a police post yesterday, at Patabhar, 350 km (220 miles) southwest of the capital, Kathmandu.

''Three of the wounded policemen have been rushed to a nearby hospital with head injuries,'' district official Shiva Nepal said.

''The Maoists ransacked the post, threw out belongings and utensils of the policemen before leaving the area,'' he added.

Maoist leaders were not immediately available for comment.

Nearly 2,000 police posts, closed during the 10-year anti-monarchy Maoist revolt, are being reopened across Nepal after rebels and the government signed a peace deal in November.

Today, authorities imposed a curfew to prevent further clashes in the southeastern town of Lahan, where a 16-year-old boy was killed when a former rebel shot at a crowd of protesters two days ago, another official said.

''We have imposed the curfew to avoid further clashes after a crowd of locals attacked a Maoist office in the town wounding five former rebels,'' Chiranjibi Adhikary, the official, said.

The protesters say Nepal's interim constitution offers very little for the development of people living in the country's impoverished southern plains.

The injured Maoists are undergoing treatment in a local hospital, the official added.

The fresh violence comes after the Maoists formally abandoned their decade-old anti-monarchy revolt when their leaders joined an interim parliament last week.

REUTERS DKA PM1553