DOTI, Jan 20: Venting their ire against the government's decision to announce temporary capitals of the provinces, people in different parts of the country are staging protests demanding to make their cities the capital of their province. However, in recent days, the protests have rather taken a violent turn. 

For the past few days, locals of Doti have been hitting the streets demanding that Dipayal is declared the capital of Province 7. Day by day, the protest is getting more violent. On Friday, in a clash between the protesters and the police in the district headquarters Silgadhi, more than three dozen protesters and four security personnel were injured. Two of the injured security personnel have been admitted to the district hospital for treatment, according to DSP Madhusudan Luitel, chief of District Police Office (DPO), Doti.

While organizing an assembly on the premises of the District Administration Office (DAO), the protesters pelted stones at the security personnel. In order to disperse the crowd and to take the situation under control, police had baton-charged the protesters and also fired 20 tear gas shells. 

Chakra Malla, district chairperson of CPN-UML, Manju Malasi, mayor of Dipayal Singadhi Municipality, Sushil Gharti, former leader of Nepali Congress (NC) are among those injured in the clash. The condition of some of the injured is said to be critical. While the protesters have been blaming the police for the clash, police authorities claim that the cops were provoked by the protesters.
 
Journalists who reached the spot for covering the incident also became victims of the violent attack.  They too were baton-charged and attacked with tear gas. Several journalists including Ganesh Mauni, Bhumiraj Joshi, Jhalak Pali, Khagendra Singh, Rajendra Joshi, Ram Hari Ojha, Chakra Bahadur Kathayat among others were injured.

 
• dozen
 
• injured
 
• doti
 
• clash