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| Kathmandu, Friday April 11, 2003 Chaitra 28, 2059. |
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Butwal shut down as students
continue protests
Post Report
KATHMANDU, April 10 : Agitated students
continued their demonstrations against the government’s ‘high-handed treatment’
in various towns across Nepal, blocking traffic in Kathmandu’s Chabahil neighbourhood
and shutting down Butwal, a town in western Nepal.
According to reports received here, Butwal was
virtually shut down today on the call of the students who were protesting the death of one
of their comrades in Tuesday police firing. Some violence did occur when protestors
smashed cars, buses and motorcycles, according to our reporter in Butwal. Protestors also
smashed the window panes of a branch office of the Rastriya Banijya Bank.
The students have demanded that the chief
district officer of Rupandehi and the District Superintendent of Police resign, taking
responsibility for Tuesday’s firing. The students have also called for a
Rupandehi-district wide shutdown tomorrow.
In Kathmandu, student protestors blocked traffic
for more than half hour in the Chabahil neighorhood. Reports from Janakpur and Rajbiraj
say that students took out protests in those towns. No violence was reported.
Meanwhile, the protests have not taken on a
distinctly political tone as student leaders are determined to turn the anti-petrol price
hike demonstrations into a protest against the current political situation. The protests
had begun on Tuesday originally against the recent price hike.
In Kathmandu today, student leaders of various
student groups sat down for a joint-meeting to chalk out future protest programmes. The
student leaders of eight student organisations reached a consensus to launch "sterner
protests" nationwide as they came up with second phase of their demonstration at the
end of the meeting.
Gagan Thapa, general secretary of Nepal Students’
Union (NSU) who also participated in today’s meeting, told The Kathmandu Post that
the meeting also succeeded in persuading the Maoist-aligned All Nepal National Independent
Students’ Union-Revolutionary (ANNISU-R) to take part in the upcoming election of
Free Students’ Union in colleges and campuses throughout the country. The elections
are going to be held after two weeks.
Meeting today at the NSU office in Kathmandu,
the eight student organizations hammered out protest programme for the next three days
which inclues, among others, calling for nationwide ‘black out’ from 7:30 p.m.
to 8 p.m. on Friday, followed by closure of all petrol pumps on Saturday.
NSU general secretary Thapa said the students
will hold condolence meet of the late student leader Devi Lal Poudel, who succumbed to
bullet injuries from police in Butwal two days back while protesting the price hike.
"We have agreed to meet again on Sunday to
thrash out new protests," Thapa added, "We decided not to drop our protests at
any cost."
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