April 17, 2007 Former
Maoists Go on Rampage
in Terai Plains By Sudeshna Sarkar
Kathmandu
Armed groups of former Maoists went on a fresh rampage in the Terai
plains of Nepal, killing a school teacher and attacking a police
post.
On Sunday night, an armed group forced their way into the house of a
schoolteacher, Basu Poudel, in frontier Kalaiya town in Bara
district, forcing him to leave with them.
Poudel's body was found near the local teachers' training centre
Monday morning.
The killing comes less than a week after Nepal's Election Commission
ruled out holding elections by June on the ground of the fragile
security situation.
Though no organisation had immediately claimed responsibility for
the abduction and murder, it is suspected to be the handiwork of any
of the two factions of a band of former Maoists from the Terai
plains, the Janatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha.
A faction of the Morcha, led by former Maoist cadre Jwala Singh,
attacked a police post in Dumariya village in trouble-prone Rautahat
district Sunday night, wounding at least one police official.
A private radio station, Himalayan Broadcasting Corporation, said
eyewitnesses claimed a rebel was killed in the firing that continued
for over an hour but there was no immediate official confirmation.
The fresh violence comes after former US president Jimmy Carter's
Carter Center, invited to Nepal to observe the election, reported
there was an "unacceptable" level of fear and violence in the
kingdom despite an official end to the decade-old Maoist insurgency
with the communist rebels joining the government.
Though the new eight-party government formed a team of ministers to
open dialogue with the protesting groups, especially from the
plains, the two major armed factions of former Maoists have refused
to sit for dialogue.
The renegade rebels broke off from the Maoist party, accusing their
comrades of neglecting the grievances of Madhesis, people from the
Terai plains who have been overlooked by a succession of Nepal
governments.
The factions are demanding an autonomous Madhes state in the plains
and the replacement of all government and security personnel in the
Terai with plains people.
The end of the Maoist insurgency, instead of bringing peace to
Nepal, has opened a Pandora's box with other groups, inspired by the
rebels' success with the gun, trying to emulate them to win their
demands.
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