KATHMANDU, April 23: Nepal’s opposition parties vowed to take a new anti-monarchy demonstration to the gates of the king’s palace as clashes with security forces left 27 injured on Sunday.

Police fired rubber bullets to ensure demonstrators remained beyond Kathmandu’s ring road during an 11-hour curfew and away from King Gyanendra’s palace as he struggles to quell almost three weeks of protests.

Up to 10,000 Nepalese turned out for a rally on the 18th day of a general strike demanding the end of Gyanendra’s absolute rule. Opposition leaders said they would hold a demonstration on Tuesday and claimed the king would be overthrown ‘in days’.

“The democratic republic has reached up to the king’s ring road and now it moves to the royal palace,” said senior protest leader Bamdev Gautam.

“We have sacrificed many friends to end the monarchy in Nepal. We are ready to sacrifice millions of lives,” said Mr Gautam, a high-ranking member of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), one of seven allied parties protesting the king’s seizure of power in February last year.

“We will move ahead until we establish a democratic republic. We will make it a model of peaceful revolution,” he added as leaders called for security forces to join the protest.

On Saturday, some 300,000 people marched to within one kilometre of the king’s palace before being beaten back by police.

Sporadic demonstrations continued on Sunday despite a day-long curfew, which ended an hour early at 7pm.

“The curfew has been strictly enforced today and we’re not going to take any chances,” said a senior police official.

Clashes were reported in four areas of the city with hospital sources reporting 27 injured, including five seriously.

“Two protesters hit by rubber bullets were just brought in,” said Dr Santosh Giri, in the emergency department of Kathmandu’s B and B Hospital. “One of them is in a serious condition as he has been hit in the neck.”—AFP