NEPAL: Nepali police shot and killed a man yesterday for violating a curfew imposed after mobs attacked a mosque and rampaged on the streets chanting "Down with Islam" to protest against the killing of 12 Nepalis in Iraq.
Protesters stormed inside the city's main mosque, set furniture and carpets on fire and tore up a copy of the Koran, before being driven out by police.
Police imposed an indefinite curfew and later fired on a group of people who gathered in downtown Kathmandu despite the ban, killing one man, an official said. Calm gradually returned after the curfew took effect and most of the capital's streets emptied.
Earlier, crowds of people burst into the offices of Saudi Arabian Airlines and Qatar Airways, smashing windows and taking papers and furniture onto the street to burn.
Clashes with police also erupted outside the Egyptian embassy as a group ransacked the adjoining offices of a manpower recruitment company. Police lobbed teargas shells and fired water cannons at about 3,000 demonstrators burning tyres at a main intersection near the Jame Masjid mosque in the heart of the city.
For much of the day, a pall of smoke hung over the capital of the Hindu kingdom after tyres were set on fire at almost every major street corner. Crowds brought out logs and firewood to feed the flames.
Authorities said they had imposed the curfew "to maintain law and order, and to protect the loss of life and property".
A militant Iraqi group said on Tuesday it had killed the 12 Nepali hostages, who went to Iraq to work as cooks and cleaners for a Jordanian firm, and showed pictures of one being beheaded and the others with bullet wounds to the head and back.
Protesters shouted "Down with Islam", "Long live the memories of the 12 Nepalis", or called for the government to resign for not doing more to protect the victims.
There is no history of significant anti-Muslim protests or riots in Nepal, which is overwhelmingly Hindu but has a small Muslim minority. But there have been widespread and sustained anti-government protests this year.
Tension was also high after Maoist rebels imposed a blockade on the capital last month. - (Reuters)