One person was today killed and four others injured in Nepal when police opened fire on hundreds of demonstrators trying to block a major national highway to protest against the proposed new constitution.
The 500-strong crowd attacked police posts with stones, bullets and petrol bomb and blocked the East-West Highway near the southeastern district of Saptari, 400 km east of Kathmandu, due to which police had to use force, a Ministry of Home Affairs statement said.
Five protesters and five policemen were injured in the clashes.
However, one of the agitators breathed his last while undergoing treatment in a local hospital in the district, police spokesperson said.
The latest violence comes after three people were killed last week in police firing in Surkhet, a western Nepal district, while protesting against the new proposals in the constitution.
The agitators also vandalized three vehicles belonging to security personnel and attacked two police posts in the area.
Clashes occurred between the police and the agitators in Kapilastu and Jumla district as well.
Two cadres of ruling CPN-UM were injured when they were attacked by agitators in Kapilvastu.
CPN-Maoist-led alliance, Madhesi parties and ethnic groups have enforced indefinite shut down in various districts of southern Nepal since Sunday to protest against the six province model of federal structure being incorporated by the four major parties in the new constitution.
Protesters say new borders discriminates against historically marginalised communities.
Nepal began working on a new constitution in 2008, two years after the end of a decade-long Maoist insurgency that ended the centuries-old Hindu monarchy in the country.
