Death toll in southern Nepal gun battle at least 25 (2nd Roundup)

Mar 21, 2007, 16:31 GMT

Kathmandu - Police said that at least 25 Maoist supporters had been killed in a gun battle between two rival political groups in southern Nepal on Wednesday afternoon.

The violence erupted when the Maoist aligned Madhesi Mukti Morcha and the ethnic Madhesi People's Rights Forum activists clashed over a venue for their mass meeting in the town of Gaur, about 105 kilometres south of the Nepalese capital Kathmandu.

MPRF supporters reportedly damaged a stage put up by the Maoists for their mass meeting which sparked the violence.

The two groups then exchanged gunfire for several minutes, the police quoted witnesses as saying.

District police on Wednesday evening said they had recovered the bodies of 13 people around the venue site while another 12 bodies were scattered around villages near Gaur.

Local authorities have clamped an overnight curfew on the town and surrounding areas.

Police also said that over 35 people had been wounded and at least 20 were critical.

Wednesday's clashes were the worst since Maoist former rebels renounced violence to join mainstream politics in April 2006.

Ethnic group MPRF and the Maoists have been involved in a series of clashes since violence first erupted in southern Nepal in mid- January.

MPRF which waged violent protests in January and February demanding greater representation of the ethnic Madhesi community and federal structure of governance, has been accused by the Maoists of 'hijacking' their agenda.

Since then the Maoists have accelerated their activities in the southern Nepalese plains known as Terai to regain its lost influence.

At least 55 people have now died in three months of violence in the restive Nepalese plains.