Nepal: Fresh blow

Kathmandu, March 23 (Reuters): Nepal’s royalist government put a key Opposition leader in police detention today after confining him in his house for more than two months, a government official said.

Madhav Kumar Nepal, general secretary of the Communist Party of Nepal-UML (CPN-UML), was taken from his home in a Kathmandu suburb to a police base at Kakani, about 30 km outside the city.

“He was under house arrest. Now he has been detained at a security base,” a top government official, who did not wish to be named, said. Nepal had been detained under the Public Security Act, he added.

Another official said Nepal would be kept in detention for three months.

The CPN-UML is restive Nepal’s second-biggest party and a key constituent of the seven-party alliance, which is planning a series of anti-king protests next month.

“There is no rule of law,” said Amrit Kumar Bohara, a top UML leader, reacting to the move. Nepal had been under house arrest since January. Yesterday, police also searched his house and seized telephones, a computer and a fax machine.

Journalist injured

Three people, including a journalist, were injured today when Maoist rebels fired indiscriminately at a busy market place in Nepal.

Nepal Samacharpatra correspondent Satya Prakash Shrestha, police constable Shiva Thapa and an employee at the Bara district health office were injured when two rebels on motorbikes fired in Bharatchowk town of Bara district, police said.