NEPAL: Nepal police used live rounds of ammunition yesterday for the first time in nearly a year to quell a general strike against municipal elections and King Gyanendra's refusal to restore democracy, witnesses and party officials said.
They said police opened fire at a pro-democracy rally in the resort town of Pokhara, 200km (125 miles) west of the capital, Kathmandu, wounding one man.
This was the first time police used live bullets to break up a protest since the king seized power on February 1st last year.
At least a dozen people were hurt and hundreds detained in yesterday's protests, as police also used batons and fired tear gas to break up protesters throwing stones during rallies calling on the king to restore multiparty democracy.
King Gyanendra has dismissed the multiparty government and curtailed civil liberties, triggering political turmoil in the impoverished Himalayan kingdom.
Government workers were forced to walk to work and then back home as private and public transport stayed off the roads in major cities due to the strike.
Schools, colleges, shops and businesses were also shut across Nepal, a country sandwiched between China and India.
"Despite the heavy crackdown, the strike was a complete success," said Krishna Prasad Sitaula, a spokesman for the country's biggest political party, Nepali Congress.
Party officials said hundreds of activists from seven political parties opposed to the king were detained. Baton-wielding police guarded government buildings and patrolled largely deserted streets across the kingdom.
The election commission said it was collecting names of the candidates after the nominations for the municipal polls closed at 5pm.
Mr Sitaula said no candidate from any major political party had registered. "This shows that the entire nation is against the king," he said. Only a few people turned up to register.
On Sunday, suspected anti-monarchy Maoist guerrillas shot dead a politician who had pledged to contest the elections in the southeastern town of Janakpur. The Maoists, fighting to topple the monarchy, have called for a week-long general strike from February 5th.
The dawn-to-dusk strike was called by the country's main political parties, who have organised fierce, often violent, street protests to press the monarch to restore full democracy.
- (Reuters)