KATMANDU: Nepal police fired tear gas and water cannon on Friday to disperse thousands of people gathered in Katmandu demanding the restoration of the monarchy, prompting authorities to impose a curfew in the area.<\/p>\n
The Himalayan nation adopted a federal and republican political system in 2008 after parliament abolished the monarchy as part of a peace deal that ended a decade-long civil war responsible for more than 16,000 deaths.
\nSupport for the restoration of the monarchy re-enshrining Hinduism as the state religion has grown in tandem with popular dissatisfaction over political instability, corruption and lackluster economic development.
\n\u201cThe country should have developed significantly. People should have had better job opportunities, peace and security and good governance. We should have been corruption-free,\u201d Mina Subedi, 55, who joined the demonstration, told AFP.
\n\u201cBut things have only deteriorated.\u201d
\nProtesters gathered near the national parliament chanting that the king and country were \u201cdearer to us than life.\u201d
\nPolice spokesman Dinesh Kumar Acharya told AFP that police fired tear gas and water cannon to clear the demonstrators after they broke into a restricted area and vandalized buildings.
\nLocal authorities announced a curfew in the area after the clash.
\nOpposition parties marshalled thousands more people at a counter-demonstration elsewhere in the capital to \u201csafeguard the republican system.\u201d
\n\u201cNepalis will not return to the past,\u201d said Pushpa Kamal Dahal, a former guerrilla chief who led the decade-long Maoist insurgency before entering politics and has since served as prime minister three times.
\n\u201cMaybe they have dared to raise their heads because us republic supporters have not been able to deliver as per the wishes and wants of the people.\u201d
\nAbdicated king Gyanendra Shah, 77, had largely refrained from commenting on Nepal\u2019s fractious politics, but recently made several public appearances with supporters.
\nShah was crowned in 2001 after his elder brother king Birendra Bir Bikram Shah and his family were killed in a palace massacre that wiped out most of the royal family.
\nHis coronation took place as the Maoist insurgency was raging in far-flung corners of Nepal.
\nShah suspended the constitution and dissolved parliament in 2005, triggering a democratic uprising in which the Maoists sided with Nepal\u2019s political establishment to orchestrate huge street protests.
\nThat eventually precipitated the end of the conflict, with parliament voting in 2008 to abolish Nepal\u2019s 240-year-old Hindu monarchy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KATMANDU: Nepal police fired tear gas and water cannon on Friday to disperse thousands of people gathered in Katmandu demanding the restoration of the monarchy, prompting authorities to impose a curfew in the area. The Himalayan nation adopted a federal and republican political system in 2008 after parliament abolished the monarchy as part of a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":79088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79071"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79089,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79071\/revisions\/79089"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}