From rxpgnews.com
Former Maoists go on rampage in Terai plains
By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS,
Apr 17, 2007 - 1:44:48 PM
Kathmandu, April 17 - Armed groups of former Maoists went on a fresh rampage in the Terai plains of Nepal, killing a school teacher and attacking a police post.
On Sunday night, an armed group forced their way into the house of a schoolteacher, Basu Poudel, in frontier Kalaiya town in Bara district, forcing him to leave with them.
Poudel's body was found near the local teachers' training centre Monday morning.
The killing comes less than a week after Nepal's Election Commission ruled out holding elections by June on the ground of the fragile security situation.
Though no organisation had immediately claimed responsibility for the abduction and murder, it is suspected to be the handiwork of any of the two factions of a band of former Maoists from the Terai plains, the Janatantrik Terai Mukti Morcha.
A faction of the Morcha, led by former Maoist cadre Jwala Singh, attacked a police post in Dumariya village in trouble-prone Rautahat district Sunday night, wounding at least one police official.
A private radio station, Himalayan Broadcasting Corporation, said eyewitnesses claimed a rebel was killed in the firing that continued for over an hour but there was no immediate official confirmation.
The fresh violence comes after former US president Jimmy Carter's Carter Center, invited to Nepal to observe the election, reported there was an 'unacceptable' level of fear and violence in the kingdom despite an official end to the decade-old Maoist insurgency with the communist rebels joining the government.
Though the new eight-party government formed a team of ministers to open dialogue with the protesting groups, especially from the plains, the two major armed factions of former Maoists have refused to sit for dialogue.
The renegade rebels broke off from the Maoist party, accusing their comrades of neglecting the grievances of Madhesis, people from the Terai plains who have been overlooked by a succession of Nepal governments.
The factions are demanding an autonomous Madhes state in the plains and the replacement of all government and security personnel in the Terai with plains people.
The end of the Maoist insurgency, instead of bringing peace to Nepal, has opened a Pandora's box with other groups, inspired by the rebels' success with the gun, trying to emulate them to win their demands.
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