Sarlahi, Jan 6: The local authority has continued curfew imposed at Barahathawa of Sarlahi district since Friday afternoon, reasoning likelihood of unrest following the death of a person in a clash.
The curfew clamped since 5:30pm Friday to 8:00am today is extended till 8:00am next day, Sunday. A person died in course of protest on Friday. The irate locals have not allowed removing the dead body from the incident site.
The 30-year-old Jay Shankar Saha was killed in the clash erupted between the demonstrators and security persons as the locals demonstrated for upgrading a primary health centre of Barahathawa municipality-6
The demonstrators are now demanding action on the culprit behind the death of Saha, establishment of a 50-bed provincial hospital at Barahathawa, and announcement of the dead one as a martyr. They have not allowed authority to pick up the casualty.
Meanwhile, Chief District Officer in Sarlahi, Komal Prasad Dhamala, has insisted that he was not aware of the reason behind the death of Saha, and had not issued order to security persons to open firing either. He, however, informed that as the protestors had been picketing the dead body, it was difficult to recover.
Discussion with the concerned sides was underway for the investigation and collection of dead one, Dhamala informed.
The locals have been staging demonstrations at Malangawa, district headquarters and at Salempur of Kabilas municipality over the incident today. They are burning tyres in the streets.
The demonstration caused injury on both sides.
The protestors had torched a motorcycle and car parked near the resident of mayor Kalpana Katuwal on Friday.
On Friday, various political parties as Nepali Congress, Janata Samajbadi Party Nepal, Bahujan, and Janamat Party had demonstrated for the enforcement of municipality decision to hand over primary health centre of Barahathawa-6 to the Madhes Province government for its upgrading.
Although the municipality’s meeting had made such decision earlier, it later retracted from it, leading to parties’ ire. The meeting decided to hand over the primary health centre to province government to upgrade it as a 50 bed hospital.
The political representatives and cadres disapproved the withdrawal of decision which ultimately caused the violent demonstration. Most of the office bearers including Mayor Katuwal withdrew the decision.
Police had resorted to blank firing and tear gas shells to contain the situation where demonstrators pelted stones on a residence of Barahathawa municipality mayor, Kalpana Katuwal, and municipality office. #Nepal
