More than 10 Maoist parliamentarians, along with some party cadres, sustained injuries on Thursday when the riot police fired rubber bullets and teargas shells on the first day of their agitation to gherao Singha Durbar, the main government secretariat.
The police used force against the demonstrators as the agitating Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoists (UCPN-M) leaders and cadres tried to break the prohibitory orders and police barricades in front of the south gate of Singha Durbar. Today was the first day of their two-day programme to picket the secretariat.
Thousands of party cadres were mobilised at eight major entry points to Singha Durbar and they laid siege to the main administrative office, just 100 metres away from it. As a result, neither Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal nor Home Minister Bhim Rawal along with four other ministers and some senior government officials were able to enter their offices throughout the day.
The government had deployed a large number of security forces from the Armed Police Force and the civil police in different circles to safeguard the government secretariat and avoid any untoward incident.
Top brass leaders of the UCPN-M, including the party chairman and former PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal, were leading their masses to make their pre-scheduled protest programme of picketing the government secretariat on Thursday and Friday.
On the first day of the protest, Maoist cadres and supporters protested against the government by organising cultural programmes chanting slogans against the President for his controversial move to retain the then sacked chief of army staff Rookmangud Katawal and demanded for the formation of national unity government under their leadership.
Briefly talking to journalists while leading the demonstrators in front of the main gate of the Singha Durbar, Prachanda, however, expressed confidence that the ongoing political deadlock would end within a week through dialogue and consensus with other political parties.
Despite this, he issued the threat that a general strike would be resumed as the third phase of the protest programme if the government does not address their demands.
The former rebels, who had become the single largest party in the Constituent Assembly after they joined the peace process in 2006, have been carrying protest programmes in and outside Parliament immediately after their chairman Prachanda stepped down from the government seven months ago.
