KATHMANDU, Nov 9: The security supervisor for the US embassy in Nepal was shot dead at his house by three gunmen on Saturday.

Deepak Prasad Pokharel was sleeping at his home in Kathmandu when three assailants entered, shot him at close range and escaped, a home ministry official said.

Pokharel supervised security arrangements for US government institutions in Nepal, including the embassy.

“The three men entered the house in the mid-afternoon and asked, ‘Where is Mr Pokharel?’” the home ministry official said.

“One family member, a girl, took them upstairs. When they saw Mr Pokharel they shot him dead and then ran away.”

It was the second killing of a security official at a US institution in Nepal in the past 11 months.

On Dec 15 last year a guard at the mission of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in Kathmandu, Ramesh Manandhar, was shot dead while on duty in another attack attributed to the Maoists.

No one has been apprehended in Mandahar’s killing and the US embassy in Kathmandu just

last week offered a 500,000-rupee reward for information leading to the arrest of the assailants.

The Maoists have been fighting since 1996 to topple the constitutional monarchy and establish a communist state. They frequently accuse the United States and India of conspiring against them.

US President George Bush’s administration has asked the Congress to approve 20 million dollars in military aid to Nepal to fight the Maoists.

The Nepalese army estimates more than 7,000 people have died in the kingdom since the Maoists launched their “people’s war” in 1996.

The rebels exercise de facto control over large sections of the kingdom, where they often destroy any infrastructure built by the Kathmandu government or foreign donors.

The violence has devastated the tourism industry, the major source of hard currency in the country of Mount Everest.—AFP