Protests, deaths delay constitution drafting
Persistent protests and deaths due to police firing and clashes forced Nepal’s three major political parties on Friday to postpone the ongoing constitution drafting process by two days.
Ruling Nepali Congress and Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) and opposition Maoists decided to halt the process till Sunday morning to hold talks with agitating parties.
Protests against demarcation of federal states in the new constitution have claimed nearly three dozen lives—in police firing and clashes between protesters and security personnel—in the past one month.
On Friday, three protesters were killed when police opened fire on a group who had violated curfew orders in the pilgrimage town of Janakpur in Dhanusha district bordering India.
In a separate incident, protesters killed an injured police officer in Mahottari district while he was being taken to hospital in an ambulance.
“The officer had sustained injuries on Friday in clashes with protesters and was being taken to Janakpur for further treatment when he was beaten to death and the ambulance burnt,” said Nepal Police spokesperson Kamal Singh Bam.
Nepal’s constituent assembly has entered last leg of the constitution drafting process and voting on various clauses in the statute was to begin on Friday.