Kathmandu, Apr 18: Students at Nepal's leading university who support an Opposition drive to oust the royalist government brawled with police today outside their main campus, police said. Student activists, who have declared the main branch of Tribhuvan university off-limits to authorities, threw stones at police and burnt tyres to stop traffic in front of the university, a police officer said.
Student leaders said several of their members were injured in a police baton-charge. Police did not confirm injuries but said traffic had resumed outside the campus. Leftist students on Wednesday tore down portraits of King Gyanendra across the main branch of Tribhuvan Unversity, where the monarch is titular chancellor, to show solidarity with the Opposition which demands a return to elected rule. The demonstration was called today against the detentions of 15 students among some 2,000 others in protests across the capital a day earlier.
"We will lock all the offices of campus administrators on Monday if the students are not freed," student activist Prasant Rimal said. The government on April 8 indefinitely banned protests in Kathmandu saying they would be infiltrated by Maoist rebels waging a bloody campaign to overthrow the monarchy.
Bureau Report