Nepalese Protesters Go On Rampage

Nepalese security forces fired at anti-monarch demonstrators on Saturday, killing one protester and wounding two more at a resort town near where King Gyanendra is vacationing, and injuring three women in another town where 25,000 people had taken to the streets.

In Katmandu, the government crushed opposition plans for a massive anti-monarchy rally with a curfew and shoot-on-sight orders, emptying the roads and sending protesters indoors after two days of violent protests. The protesters want the king to restore democracy.

In the southern town of Bharatpur, more than 25,000 pro-democracy activists rioted in the streets in the largest protest in this week's anti-monarch campaign, officials said. The protesters set fire to at least half a dozen government offices and forced riot police to retreat from the main square in Bharatpur, a government official said, requesting anonymity as he is not authorized to speak to the media.

Police fired bullets and tear gas to disperse the protesters, but injured three women, including two sisters, who were watching the melee.

In the resort town of Pokhara, Gangadhar Baral, said he was among a group of protesters pelting stones at security forces when the soldiers shot at them.

"We were protesting and some of us were throwing stones at the soldiers. Suddenly, the soldiers fired shots at us. One of my friends was killed instantly," Baral said at the hospital in Pokhara, about 125 miles west of the capital, Katmandu.

In the capital Katmandu, protesters hurled bricks, shouted slogans and clashed with police in a few places before the curfew came into effect, but then the city went silent and people scurried home.

The curfew began at 10 a.m. and was to continue until 9 p.m. in Katmandu and two suburbs for security reasons, the government announced on state-run Radio Nepal. Violators would be shot, it said.

The rally "will not take place today. That will be postponed until tomorrow," said Khadga Prasad Oli, deputy leader of the Communist Party of Nepal and a key protest organizer. "We strongly oppose this. The imposition of a curfew is unnecessary, illegal and illogical. There is no ground for this."

The rally was intended to be the high point of a four-day general strike by Nepal's seven main political parties aimed at pressuring King Gyanendra to restore democracy. For the first time, the parties' protest has the backing of the communist rebels, who are separately fighting against the king's rule and formed a loose alliance with the political parties in December.

Hundreds of rebels attacked security bases late Friday at Butwal, a town 175 miles southwest of Katmandu, followed by another attack at nearby Taulihawa town around midnight. The guerrillas freed 104 prisoners from a local jail and bombed government buildings, officials said.

At least nine guerrillas, two soldiers and a policeman were killed in the fierce fighting, the Defense Ministry said.

"We are suspending our agitation there for now. People are in sorrow," Oli said.

Authorities have cracked down forcefully on the protests. On Friday, police battled protesters in the narrow alleys of Katmandu, using batons and tear gas to beat back stone-throwing students. The number of pro-democracy advocates arrested swelled to 751, a government minister said.

A post office in Katmandu was set on fire Friday, and students at the capital's Tribhuwan University ransacked the dean's office and briefly held several officers hostage.

The hundreds of angry students were joined in protests by ordinary workers, professionals and business owners - a sign, the opposition said, of building momentum against the king.

Of the 751 people arrested over the past three days, 115 were sent to prison under a tough public safety law that allows authorities to jail people without charge for 90 days, Home Minister Kamal Thapa said.

"The government is using minimum force to control the situation," Thapa told reporters. "There is no need for people to be scared and we are doing what we can to foil the protest."

But he warned that authorities would declare emergency rule if needed.

Clashes also were reported in numerous other neighborhoods of Katmandu where rallies were held by the alliance of political parties.

The rebels have promised not to wage attacks in Katmandu during the strike, but have stepped up attacks elsewhere.

Earlier Friday, the rebels raided two army camps and a police station in Butwal, a town 175 miles southwest of Katmandu. They snapped communication links at the three sites, leaving police with no information on casualties in the raid, a police official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

Gyanendra called for calm in a speech broadcast live Friday on national radio and television.

"Let us all pledge today to devote time for establishing permanent peace," he said. "It is the need of today to establish permanent peace."

The remarks were the king's first public words about the daily protests and the escalating violence from communist rebels. But he did not refer to the four-day strike that began Thursday that has left streets largely empty in Katmandu, except for protesters.

The strike, running through Sunday, shut down public transport in the city, and hundreds of people walked to work, although many stayed home. Shops and schools were shut.

Gyanendra says he was forced to seize power in February last year because of the growing communist insurgency, which has killed some 13,000 people since 1996.