KATHMANDU, Jan 21: Nepalese police on Saturday arrested several hundred protesters and fired tear gas during running clashes in central Kathmandu with activists demonstrating against King Gyanendra.

Groups of protesters played cat-and-mouse with police, throwing stones and running away in and around Durbar Square in the historic centre of the Nepalese capital.

Dozens of police were carrying firearms in place of their usual bamboo batons.

The square was the planned venue for a pro-democracy protest, but there was no sign of a demonstration, with groups of people sporadically trickling into the square, which was littered with stones and half-bricks.

Police arrested more than 236 people, an official said later, with journalists and other eyewitnesses reporting some 300 demonstrators were rounded up and bundled into police vans. The activists chanted pro-democracy slogans as they were taken away.

“Over 230 people were arrested for defying government ban orders by taking part in demonstrations,” the official from Kathmandu Valley police said. He refused to say when they would be released.

Citing the threat of Maoist rebel violence, the government banned street protests, cut mobile telephone services, imposed a daytime curfew and arrested hundreds of other activists.—AFP