Kathmandu: A peaceful strike called by Hindu groups to protest parliament's move to declare Nepal a secular state closed down a southern border town Thursday and threatened to block imports of goods from neighbouring India.
Markets, schools and businesses were shut in Birgunj, 100 miles south of the capital, Kathmandu.
Birgunj lies on Nepal's border with India and is the main route for goods, supplies and fuel imported from Nepal's southern neighbour.
But on Thursday, the town's highways were deserted.
The chief government administrator in the area, Navin Ghimire, said security had been beefed up but that there had been no reports of any violence.
Strike organisers said they were protesting a clause in a resolution passed by Parliament last week stipulating that Nepal no longer be formally known as a Hindu country.
"Our protest is against Parliament removing Nepal's status as a Hindu nation. We will continue our protest until the decision is reversed," said one of the strike organisers and coordinator for the Religion Awareness Front, a body representing several Hindu groups in Birgunj, Umesh Patel.
"There is a feeling of brotherhood among the people because Nepal is a Hindu nation, But parliament has destroyed all that," Patel said adding that the decision was neither necessary nor justifiable.
Nepal's constitution, written in 1990, declared the Himalayan nation a Hindu kingdom and more than 85 per cent of the country's 27 million people are Hindus.
In April, weeks of protests forced King Gyanendra to give up the powers he seized last year, reinstate parliament and appoint Girija Prasad Koirala as the prime minister.
Meanwhile, doctors throughout Nepal were also on strike Thursday to protest attacks by mobs on at least two hospitals and their staff earlier this week in disputes over patients who died, the Nepal Medical Association said.
Doctors at private and government hospitals in cities and towns across the country halted work for one day, but emergency services remained open, according to Dr Sudha Adhikari, a member of the association.
PAGE_BREAK
At Bir Hospital, the main hospital in Kathmandu, patients were turned away without treatment because of the strike. Hospital staff told them to return on Friday.
On Wednesday, a mob attacked the Everest Nursing Home in Kathmandu after a patient suffering from asthma died and his son was beaten by hospital guards when he tried to attack the doctor, according to hospital staff.
The hospital admitted it was at fault in the patient's death because it did not have bottled oxygen.
The hospital has agreed to pay Rs 250,000 rupees in compensation.
At a regional hospital in Butwal, about 200 kilometers southwest of Kathmandu, an accident victim died on Tuesday because of alleged doctor negligence, triggering an angry protest in which mobs stoned the hospital and a dozen clinics in the town.
They also vandalised drug stores and abused doctors.
"We are demanding an immediate investigation of the attacks on the hospital and medical staff and punishment for those involved in the attack," the medical association said.
Doctors are often accused of negligence in Nepal, and there is little recourse for deaths due to improper or inadequate treatment.
Comments
0 comment