Agitators torch ambulance and medicine vehicles in Nepal

Indian-origin Madhesi protesters have torched an ambulance and a medicine-laden truck carrying drugs worth over Rs 2 million imported from India near the Indo-Nepal border where hundreds of vehicles with essential goods are stuck due to the ongoing blockade.
The truck with medicines was torched by the cadres of the agitating Joint Democratic Madhesi Front (JDMF) close to the border town of Raxaul, despite an assurance that they would allow vehicles to carry medicines as the country faces shortage of medicines due to the two-month-long agitation in Terai, the police said.
The agitators hurled a petrol bomb on the vehicle in Birgunj Municipality of Parsa last night as the vehicle headed towards Janakpur, a southern Nepal town, the police said.

The fire in the medicine-laden truck destroyed medicines worth Rs 2 million imported from India.
Earlier yesterday, the JDMF had issued a statement that they would allow movement of medicine-laden vehicles and would let the schools in southern Nepal function normally.
Meanwhile, the cadres of the agitating Madhesi Front also set an ambulance on fire, in Morang in eastern Nepal.

The vehicle was ferrying a sick child to a local hospital in district headquarters Biratnagar.
The child also sustained minor injuries but is safe, the police said.
The police have arrested eight members of agitating Madhesi parties for their alleged involvement in the incident.

Nepal has been hit by a major political crisis over the new Constitution opposed by Indian-origin Madhesis who have led an agitation and blockaded key border trade points of Nepal with India, leading to a shortage of essential goods including fuel and cooking gas.
Madhesis, Indian-origin inhabitants of Nepal's Terai region, are protesting division of their ancestral homeland in the new Constitution.
Over 40 people have died in the violent agitation that has also overwhelmed Indo-Nepal ties as transit of goods and fuel to the Himalayan nation from India via the major border trading points has been badly affected.
The agitation by Madhesi groups has paralysed normal life across Nepal while the dearth of medicines has put lives of patients at stake.