KATHMANDU: The shadowy Nepalese leader whose Maoist group ended a truce with the government at the weekend calls himself Prachanda, which loosely translates as “awesome” or “majestically terrible”.

His friends say he is a gentle, soft-spoken person, but in the minds of many, Prachanda lives up to his adopted name.

The 47-year-old Maoist, who is reputed to have 16 bodyguards and an addiction to buffalo milk, has become a formidable force in the Himalayan kingdom.

His Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), which takes inspiration from Peru’s Shining Path movement, has waged a five-year rebellion to topple Nepal’s constitutional monarchy.

His estimated 5,000-strong guerillas took the opportunity to launch a string of attacks, marking a new phase in their campaign in which 1,850 people have been killed.

Those who know Prachanda say he is quite different from his fearsome image.

Prachanda’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) guerillas specialize in night-time hit-and-run attacks on remote and ill-equipped police posts from where they also seize arms.

His guerillas, active in at least 30 of the kingdom’s 75 administrative districts, have formed local “people’s governments” in several areas steeped in poverty and have succeeded in effectively driving out the local authorities. —Reuters