“We will seize all the illegally possessed firearms in the district,” said Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Arun Kumar Shah.
Abiding by the District Administration Office (DAO)´s instructions, people in the district had handed over a huge number of firearms, most of them illegally obtained, to the police last month. According to the police, of the 566 firearms collected last month only 27 were licensed ones. [break]
Police consider possession of small arms by the locals a major challenge facing poll security. Police claim that they have devised a special security plan for the district. Eight Maoist cadres were shot dead in Dang prior to the CA polls in 2008.
UCPN (Maoist) district leader Harish Chandra Chaudhari was shot at on Saturday at Daruwa Dhamkapur in the district on Saturday. “The shooting on Saturday has taken alarmed us,” said Shah.
Nepali Congress candidate for constituency 3 of the district Raju Khanal said incidents of violence prior to the polls would terrorize the voters and poses a challenge to the conduct of free and fair polls. “The local administration should take the issue of security seriously. Poll candidates have been feeling insecure as they have been running door-to-door campaigns currently,” Khanal said.
Meanwhile, the police claimed that the attack on Chaudhari was not a politically motivated incident.
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