On 13 February 1996, after Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba had left for a state visit to India two days before, the office of the Small Farmer's Development Programme run by the Agricultural Development Bank was overrun in Gorkha district and the loan papers were destroyed. This was followed in the evening by attacks on police posts in Aathbiskot-Rari in Rukum, Holeri in Rolpa and Sindhuligadhi in Sindhuli. The 'People's War' was formally launched.