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First day of Nepal strike passes off peacefully

The first day of a two-day national general strike called by nine Nepalese left-wing parties to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala concluded relatively peacefully on Monday, officials said.

The nine leftist parties called the strike to demand Koirala's resignation for allegedly failing to maintain law and order, curb corruption and control inflation.

The streets of Kathmandu were deserted as motorists kept off the roads for fear of being stoned by protestors, while almost all the shops in the capital were closed.

Only a few government vehicles were operating, while government employees were seen going to office on foot owing to the absence of transport services.

A home ministry spokesman, Gopendra Bahadur Pandey, said the strike passed off without any major incidents.

"A taxi was attacked with a homemade (petrol) bomb in Kathmandu, but no one was seriously injured and a normal situation prevailed throughout the day," he said.

Leftist sources said riot police arrested over 60 persons, including some leaders from the nine factions, but Pandey said only some 25 arrests had been made.

Talks to avert the strike failed on Sunday after Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Ram Chandra Paudel also refused to bow to the calls for his resignation.

Nepal Communist Party, Marxist-Leninist, general secretary Bam Dev Gautam told reporters the strike would go ahead "as Paudel is not ready to take moral responsibility for killings and terror last week and resign".

Gautam was referring to unrest in Nepal, which began on Tuesday after Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan allegedly made inflammatory remarks on television against Nepal and the Nepalese people.

Angry students went on a rampage, attacking Indians and their business institutions, claiming five lives and injuring more than 120.

Hrithik Roshan denied making any derogatory remarks.

The general secretary of the main opposition Nepal Communist Party, United Marxist and Leninist, Madhav Kumar Nepal condemned the strike.

Nepal, in a press statement on Monday, called on the parties concerned to end their agitation, which he said had led to a state of lawlessness in the country.

"The recent left-wing students' protest was engineered by the internal revivalist forces as well as alien forces," he said.

"The excesses committed last week during the students' agitation against businessmen, industrialists and the people of the lowland Terai as well as some Indian citizens is deplorable," he said.

Stressing the need to maintain communal harmony, Nepal said, "Communal disturbances were created in Kathmandu and outlying districts at the behest of domestic and foreign reactionaries." He did not name the foreign reactionaries.

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