11 injured in explosion during election rally in Kathmandu

A blast in Nepal's Kathmandu left a candidate and 11 others injured on Monday, the last day of election campaigning for the forthcoming phase of the parliamentary and the provincial council poll.

Gagan Thapa, a Nepali Congress Candidate, was attacked during his campaign and public interaction walk in Chapali, the outskirts of Kathmandu.

Two of the injured people are said to be in critical condition and are undergoing treatment at the Tribhuwan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH).

The police is yet to identify the group behind it as well as the technique and the bomb used in the blast.

The Nepali Congress released a statement condemning the attack and declaring it to be against the democratic norms and values. It claimed the attack to be of an intention of killing the candidate.

 

"The attack was intended to kill the Nepali Congress leader, candidate and the cadres and we loath this sort of hideous act and we condemn this heinous act," read the statement.

As many as 15 million Nepalis are eligible to vote in the historic elections which are going to be the first one since the 10-year-long civil war that ended in 2006.

While the first round of the first poll under the new constitution adopted in 2015 took place on November 26, the second one is due on December 7.

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, who also holds the charge of the home minster, has been criticised lately for not being able to appoint a new home minister and putting the nation's internal security at stake after the cabinet reshuffle about a month ago. He himself was targetted in a bomb attack during his election campaign in the Dang district.

Local people, however, seem to be unaffacted by such attacks and excited for the elections.

While talking to ANI, Bhupalman Karmacharya, a local said, "This sort of act is nothing but only an attempt to scare people. We will definitely go and cast our vote and there is no doubt about it."

The splinter group of Maoist Centre is under the suspection of being behind this attack but the base for the assumptions is yet to be cleared.