Nepal on Monday declared a daytime curfew and kept shoot-on-sight orders in the capital for the third consecutive day as it battled to contain nation-wide protests against the king. "Local authorities have imposed a curfew around Kathmandu between 11:00 am (0515 GMT) and 6:00 pm (1215 GMT)," state-run Radio Nepal said.
Around 1,500 people defied the curfew to gather in the Kirtipur area of Kathmandu in the morning, blocking a major road with boulders. The peaceful crowd sang pro-democracy songs and chanted anti-royal slogans while security forces watched without intervening.
In Gangabu on the outskirts of the city, hundreds of people staged a protest that was mainly peaceful in the morning but later turned violent, an AFP reporter said, adding that police had fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the crowd.
Anti-royal demonstrations and hundreds of arrests were also reported elsewhere in the country, an opposition leader said.
Rajendra Pandey, protest leader from the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist), said more than 4,000 people had protested in Dailekh district west of the capital, with about 500 arrests.