Police, pro-monarchy protestors clash in Nepal capital

Pro-monarcy protestors – led by Durga Prasai, an entrepreneur and a former Maoist activist turned central committee member of the K P Oli-led Communist Party of Nepal – Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) – moved away from the designated protest area towards market places where they began shouting slogans in favour of restoring the monarchy and abolishing the ‘costly federal system’. They even clashed with members of Yubasangh – a militant youth wing of the UML Party.

Police intervened when protestors of the two groups clashed after Yubasangh protestors tried to enter the area allotted to Prasai’s group. Police placed barriers and water canons on streets and installed CCTVs to monitor Prasai’s supporters round the clock. However, the surveillance and security arrangements in the area pertained to the Yubasangh.

Yubasangh held a separate rally at Tinkune, where space was allotted for it. Mahesh Basnet, a former chief of the organisation and close confidant of Oli warned they will not let the likes of Prasai create an anarchic situation.

Later in the day, Prasai said the movement was a “mass rebellion of the people against the current system”. He also asked Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal to “surrender before the people and follow their wish about the kind of political system the country should adopt”.

Prasai’s movement – which he calls ‘save the country’ – also lambasted Ppposition leader K P Oli.

“We oppose looting and plundering by political leaders. Banks, cooperatives and financial institutions have exploited people and we want loans of less than Rs two million by these institutions be waved,” he said.

Prasai also solicited the support of businessman in the capital by asking them to put their shutters down from 24th November onwards.