Maoists tightened their grip on Kathmandu on Friday when two powerful bombs were detonated and a police officer seriously wounded by suspected guerrillas who have blockaded Nepal’s capital for a third day.
The two blasts, just hours apart, destroyed a police post and caused considerable damage to a government building in the centre of the city.
The second bomb, which also wounded a passing motorcyclist, left twisted metal frames and glass littering the area around the busy Dilli Bazaar area.
”The rebels are targeting public places where there are crowds,” a police officer said. ”Luckily, not many people were around as it was still early in the day.”
Although no one was killed, the attacks are seen as an attempt to scare the city’s 1,5-million residents into ensuring that the siege of Kathmandu continues.
The bombings came on the third day of the Maoist blockade of the city, which aims to pressure the government into releasing jailed guerrillas. The tactics, first used by South American left-wing groups, have been particularly successful.
The rebels have managed to isolate the capital from the rest of the country by simply threatening to attack vehicles. They have not set up a single roadblock.
”We could easily be the next victims,” said Kami Gurung, a taxi driver. ”No one knows where the bombs will come from and who is going to throw it, it is just not worth the risk.”
Nepal has no substantial rail links and roads are the country’s lifeline. Most of Kathmandu’s food, fuel and other supplies are brought in by truck. There have been concerns that petrol and fresh produce supplies will run low in a few days.
Despite official assurances that the capital will not run out of staples such as rice and flour, the prices of some fresh vegetables have doubled in local markets.
There are also fears that the blockade will deter tourists from visiting the Himalayan kingdom, depriving the impoverished state of foreign exchange.
The Deputy Prime Minister, Bharat Mohan Adhikari, said the government is committed to providing security to industries and transport. He urged the Maoists to give up violence and join the peace process.
The president of the Federation of the Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Binod Bahadur Shrestha, told the BBC that several industries face closure because of the blockade.
About a dozen of the country’s biggest businesses, including a five-star hotel in Kathmandu, have shut since Tuesday, when the rebels threatened to target them.
Inspired by the Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, the rebels have been fighting for eight years to replace Nepal’s monarchy with a communist state.
More than 9 500 people have died in the ”people’s war”, most of them in rural areas far from the capital.
Analysts said the Maoists had scaled back their ambitions since the September 11 attacks on the United States.
”The Maoist demands now really centre on elections to a new assembly,” said Anand Swarup Verma, a prominent writer on Nepalese affairs. ”They have couched their demands as ‘democracy, not monarchy’.”
The US, which backs the monarch, King Gyanendra, said in a statement: ”The US firmly rejects the Maoist intimidation, terrorism, and threats of violence against civilians.”
New Delhi is concerned that the revolt could spill over into India, where security forces are battling left-wing rebels in the states of Bihar, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh. India’s top foreign-affairs bureaucrat flew in to Kathmandu this week for a briefing. — Guardian Unlimited Â