IPS news reports appear daily in English, German, Finnish, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish. Recently, Maoist rebels also exploded home-made bombs in several districts, burned down government vehicles, and also shot and hacked to death at least half a dozen people for allegedly being police 'informers'. The strike virtually turned Nepal's capital, Kathmandu, into a ghost town with few people on the streets and almost no vehicles on the roads. Most business remained closed through the day. Police reported sporadic violence and vehicle burning in Kathmandu.
Reports coming from other towns in Nepal also speak of violence and arson.
Most observers who visited violence-racked areas in the rural districts of Rolpa, Rukum, Salyan and others, have tales of extreme poverty, social inequality alienating the rural peasantry from the mainstream political process. But the method they have chosen is wrong. HRPS president Krishna Pahari, a former president of AI's Nepal chapter, told IPS that the renewed violence threatens the prospect of peace in the kingdom. Pahari is also concerned about the efforts by some rights organizations and politicians to paint the Maoists as the victims. The renewed slide into violence is a blow to Nepal's centre- right government which only recently issued fresh calls to the Maoists to come forward for talks.