6 killed in clashes between protesters, police in Nepal

At least six people have been killed in violent clashes between police and the demonstrators who were on the streets in southern Nepal to voice their dissatisfaction with the country’s draft constitution about federalism.

“Five protesters -- two in Mahottari and three in Dhanusa district -- were killed after police were forced to fire at aggressive demonstrators yesterday,” police spokesman Kamal Singh Bam told AFP on Saturday.

According to the official, a police officer was also among the victims.

The officer, who had sustained injuries in scuffles with the protesters, was reportedly dragged out of an ambulance and beaten to death on the way to hospital.

“A crowd of about 150 stopped and surrounded the ambulance, dragged him out to a field nearby and killed him. The ambulance was torched,” said a spokesman for the armed police force Pushpa Ram KC.

The clashes began after police attacked a demonstration against a proposed new constitution that would divide the Himalayan nation into seven federal provinces.

In the country’s south, tensions are particularly high as some ethnic communities believe the new proposed internal borders would limit their political representation.

They also say the new borders would break their narrow region into small pieces and merge them into larger provinces with other ethnic groups.

Nepal’s human rights commission has urged the government and the protesters to engage in peaceful dialogue and stop the violence.

Shortly after April’s devastating earthquake in Nepal, lawmakers struck a breakthrough deal on a new constitution.

Work on a new national constitution began in 2008 two years after the end of the Maoist insurgency that left an estimated 16,000 people dead and brought down the 240-year-old Hindu monarchy.

However, the issue of internal borders left Nepal -- one of the world’s poorest countries -- in political limbo for years.

On Friday morning, major Nepalese political parties agreed to halt the process of drafting the constitution to bring the dissidents in the southern areas on board.

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