Violence erupted in several paces in southern Nepal Sunday as a crippling general strike paralysed normal life across the region.The two-day general strike called by Tharu Welfare Council, a group representing ethnic Tharu community in southern Nepal, has affected nearly two dozen districts.
They are protesting the government decision to issue a bill on reservation in government jobs, including the security forces, which makes provisions for seats for Madhesi group from southern Nepal.
They say Tharu are not ethic Madhesi and that the government has wrongly classified all groups living in southern Nepalese plains known as Terai as ethnic Madhesi.
"We want the Tharu community to be included as the indigenous community of Terai, not in the Madhesi group," said Raj Kumar Lekhi, general secretary of Tharu Welfare Council.
On Sunday, Tharu activists enforcing the strike set fire to five vehicles in Dang district, about 400 kiometres west of the Nepalese capital Kathmandu for defying their strike call. Two more buses were burnt by the activists in Saptari district in eastern Nepal.
Education institutions, government offices, main markets and shops were forcefully shut down across southern Nepal while pubic and private transport came to a grinding halt on a major highway inking eastern part of the country with the west. Protestors also took to the streets in several towns across the region and clashed with police.
In the town of Ghaighat in eastern Nepal, police and protestors fought pitched street battles in which at least three protestors were injured. Last week, the government pushed through three ordinances, including one on reservation in government jobs, despite opposition from Nepalese political parties.
The reservation bill would provide 45 per cent reservation in government services for women, ethnic Madhesis, people from backward region and the disabled.
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