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KATHMANDU, April 12: Maoist rebels using rocket launchers and bombs killed 54 people, including 48 policemen, in a string of attacks on police posts in western Nepal, the government said on Friday.
It said government troops had killed eight rebels in separate incidents across the Himalayan kingdom since Thursday.
The Maoist attacks late on Thursday were the deadliest against security forces since February. “The death toll (from these attacks) is now 54,” said junior home minister Devendra Raj Kandel.
The rebels are fighting to overthrow Nepal’s constitutional monarchy and set up a one-party communist republic in the impoverished Himalayan country.
A witness said the rebels attacked the police posts in three villages in Dang district, 450kms west of Kathmandu. “We were all terrified, we had no sleep,” Goti Buddha, a local journalist in Satbariya village, told Reuters by telephone.
Some buildings the rebels set on fire in Satbariya were still smouldering. The guerrillas also looted two state banks in nearby Lamahi village and cut power lines in the area, he said.
Soldiers were sent to the area but rebels blocked roads with logs, police said.
The victims were 35 policemen in Satbariya and 13 in Lamahi as well as six passengers on a bus set alight by the rebels. There were no casualties in Bhaluwang village.
It was the deadliest attack by the insurgents since February 22 when they killed 34 policemen.
The number of casualties suffered by the rebels in these attacks is unknown because they normally take their dead with them after an assault.
The Maoists launched their rebellion in 1996 and stepped up their attacks after walking out of peace talks last year.
Nepal has imposed a state of emergency to quell the revolt and given the army sweeping powers to crack down on the rebels.
BOLSTERED DRIVE: It stepped up its counter-insurgency drive after 167 people, most of them soldiers, police and rebel fighters, died in a massive guerrilla offensive in mid-February.
The revolt has claimed more than 3,000 lives since 1996 and badly hit the economy of a nation that draws thousands of backbackers and mountain climbers a year and depends on the tourist industry for much of its revenue.
It has also forced Nepal to divert badly needed development funds into the struggle against the rebels.
Nepal has been in turmoil since a palace bloodbath last June when most of the royal family, including the popular King Birendra, were murdered by the crown prince.
Nepal relied initially on its poorly trained police to combat the Maoist guerrillas, and mobilised its army for the first time only late last year. The mountainous terrain has hampered the army’s efforts to flush out the rebels from their hideouts.—Reuters
