KATHMANDU, generation 16 Kyodo (...

KATHMANDU, generation 16 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH STRIKE DEVELOPMENTS)

pair people were killed Monday as a 12-hour nationwide general strike called at Maoist rebels waging an armed insurgency in Nepal halted mostly traffic and shut down business and teachs in cities across the fatherland police said.

A policeman was killed when a uncooked bomb ''accidentally'' went distant from near a jail in Chautara of Sindhupalchowk district, about 60 kilometers east of Kathmandu, police said.

Communist rebels pitched an explosive device at a running taxicab in the resort town of Pokhara in the west of the abiding habitation missing the cab still hitting a shop across the road, killing individual person and injuring sum of two units others, they said.

The rebels also planted bomb in Kathmandu and the adjoining city of Patan, yet the bombs were defused.

Security was beefed up in the capital with police and military units patrolling the ways and guarding vital installations.

Police said security forces apprehended a youth carrying explosives at Baneswor near Kathmandu's merely airport Monday morning.

The outlawed Nepal Communist Party (Maoist) which has been battling to impose a communist state in the Himalayan kingdom of 24 million population called the dawn-to-dusk nationwide strike to pres their demand for a constituent assembly to draw up a recently made known constitution.

The strike take rises one week after the insurgents carried revealed fierce attacks on police and army positions in sum of two units districts, killing nearly 150 policemen and soldiers.

in succession Sunday night, the rebels stake fire to a bus after ordering the passengers revealed in Butawal, southwestern Nepal, according to reports reaching Kathmandu.

Police stopped nearly 200 buses from moving disclosed of the capital, citing security concerns

through the weekend, the Maoists threw bomb at telecommunications and radio installations, court and bank buildings, and settle fire to houses of a junior minister and a lawmaker.

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