Police arrest dozens who tried to enforce strikes

January 4, 2017 12:54 PM

The group said that the government has also violated an interim order from the Supreme Court to suspend the expansion of roads.

Nepalese police in riot gear walk past shuttered shops in Kathmandu.

Nepalese police on Wednesday arrested dozens of protesters after they attempted to enforce strikes in three cities including Kathmandu over the government’s alleged failure to compensate people displaced by a major road expansion project.

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Sharad Chand, a senior police officer in Kathmandu, after they tried to block roads and force shops to close, said, “Seventy protesters were arrested in Kathmandu and six in the neighbouring city of Lalitpur."

“We have organised the strike to protest against the displacement of hundreds of people, who haven’t been compensated by the government"

The group, a coalition of two dozen groups based in the valley, said that the government has also violated an interim order from the Supreme Court to suspend the expansion of roads.

Nepalese authorities began to expand and upgrade around 80 kilometres of roads in the Kathmandu Valley, home to four million people, in 2012.

However, people forced to move because of the expansion have complained that the authorities failed to compensate them.

On Wednesday, most offices and schools were closed because of the strikes, while the valley’s normally gridlocked traffic was flowing as most public transport wasn’t running.