The patron of the organizer Srijanshil Youth Club and Nepali Congress (NC) Surkhet District Working Committee member Hasta Bahadur Pun, four police personnel and local youths, Dilip Pun, Dinesh Pandey, Yadav Khatri and Dal Bahadur Karki were injured in the scuffle with the Maoist combatants. [break]
According to eyewitnesses, a group of locals had engaged in a brawl with a Maoist combatant named Ashutosh at around 3pm. Later, around 300 cantoned combatants from PLA Sixth Division in Surkhet who had reached Mehalkuna to watch the sport competition battered locals and police personnel with stones and sticks. They even beat up police personnel who had reached the spot to settle the brawl. Eyewitnesses said when locals tried to rescue police personnel, they too were attacked.
"When we tried to rescue the police personnel after the Maoist combatants pulled off their uniform and started beating them," said Pun, "they turned their ire against us." According to Pun, Maoist combatants did not spare even those who reached there to settle the brawl.
Journalist´s camera seized
Maoist combatants have seized camera of journalist Ramesh Shahi, who had reached to cover the incident. Shahi is a district correspondent for Rajdhani Daily.
According to Shahi, Maoist combatants misbehaved and seized his camera as he was taking photographs of the crowd gathered at the police office. "Though they returned the camera after an hour, all the photos were deleted," he said.
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