A man is arrested by the police in Kathmandu on Wednesday for vandalising the Everest Nursing Home over the death of a patient. (Reuters)

Kathmandu, May 24: Hundreds of Nepalis in the southern town of Birgunj protested against the plan to turn Nepal into a secular state.

The activists, who belonged to the World Hindu Federation (WHF) and Shiv Sena Nepal, organised rallies and blocked the Tribhuvan highway on the Bara-Parsa industrial belt near the Indian border. They also burnt copies of a newspaper which supported the parliamentary declaration to turn the Himalayan nation into a secular state.

The protesters enforced a day-long bandh in Birgunj and Kalaiya bazaar. They also blocked traffic at Gandak, Parwanipur and Jitpur intersections of the Tribhuvan highway which leads into India. The protesters burnt tyres and shouted slogans in support of Hinduism and ridiculed the parties for daring to convert the world’s only Hindu state into a secular one.

The WHF, which is headed by Bharat Kesar Sinha, a close aide of King Gyanendra, has supported the monarch during his 15-month reign which ended last month after the pro-democracy movement.

In fact, as the pro-democracy protests gained in momentum, Gyanendra attended the WHF silver jubilee celebrations in Birgunj early last month.

Both the WHF and Shiv Sena plan to continue with the protests in Birgunj and other towns tomorrow. Nearly 75 per cent of Nepal’s 26 million people are Hindus.

The rest are Muslims, Christians and Animists, who believe that plants, animals and natural things have a living soul.

Maoist demand

The Maoist rebels have said that they will join an interim administration only after the dissolution of Nepal’s re-instated parliament and government, a rebel negotiator said today.

“It is part of our roadmap that the present parliament, constitution and the government should be dissolved and replaced by an interim government and constitution,” said Dinanath Sharma, part of a three-member rebel team which is in Kathmandu for peace talks with the new government.

No date has been set for the talks.

The rebels, which supported the pro-democracy protests organised by the seven major political parties, have no representation in parliament.