CHITWAN, JAN 05 - Three army personnel were killed last night when rebel-Maoists detonated a powerful electric landmine targeting a convoy of the Royal Nepalese Army vehicles which was on its way to Kathmandu along the Narayangadh-Mugling Highway at Jalbire.
Security officials said that 18 other soldiers and eight civilians, three of them belonging to a single family living across the Trishuli River, were also injured in the roadside blast.
The busy Narayangadh-Mugling Highway had remained blocked for about 10 hours as a result of the incident.
A Maoist suspect was also reportedly killed when the army personnel returned fire shortly after a hired-bus in which they were travelling was ambushed on the road reduced to a worst condition as a result of heavy downpour during the monsoon.
The hired-bus with registration number Ga 1 Kha 60 and 10 other military trucks carrying soldiers were on their way to the capital from western part of the country when the rebels ambushed them at Jalbire. The bus was damaged completely, said officials.
Names of the soldiers, who died instantly, were yet to be identified. Among the injured, eight seriously wounded soldiers were airlifted to the Birendra Military Hospital in Kathmandu and the rest were taken to the Baireni-based military barracks for treatment.
Immediately after the incident, security forces and the rebels exchanged fire in which three people of a single family living across the highway and river were injured.
They have been identified as Jeet Bahadur Rana, his wife Santa Maya and their four-year-old son Chitra Bahadur. They are now undergoing treatment at the Bharatpur Hospital.
"It was about nine in the evening when we heard a loud explosion and bullets hit our walls," said Jeet Bahadur from the hospital bed, "For a while, we did not know we also received bullets."
Five other civilians collecting fodder in jungle were also injured in a crossfire this morning when the rebels opened fire at a team of security personnel returning to Narayangadh from Jalbire near Jugadi, Chitwan.
Those injured in the crossfire have been identified as Fulmaya B.K., Bishnu Maya Majhi, Mangali Maya Majhi, Man Maya Majhi and Jeet Bahadur Majhi.Posted on: 2004-01-06 04:47

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