Kathmandu, Nov 15: A Brigadier General, his wife and two guards were killed today by a landmine planted by suspected Maoist rebels in the first death of a senior army officer in Nepal's seven-year insurgency, police said. Brigadier General Sagar Bahadur Pandey was returning to his base from his home when his jeep was blown up by explosives hidden in the road at the town of Tangrang, 190 kilometres south of Kathmandu, police said. "The Brigadier General, his wife and his two bodyguards died. Twelve security men in a jeep following them were seriously injured," local police superintendent Narayan Bastakoti told a news agency. The injured troops were airlifted to Kathmandu for urgent treatment, he said. Pandey, the son of a veteran diplomat who had been foreign secretary and consul general in Lhasa, was trained in Germany as an expert on explosives.


Bureau Report