Kalikot clash : 40 soldiers? bodies found
Himalayan News Service
Student leaders who were freed from the central jail on the orders of the Supreme Court talk to journalists in Kathmandu on Tuesday.
Kathmandu/Surkhet, Aug 9:
The Royal Nepalese Army today confirmed 40 soldiers were killed in Kalikot when over 1,000 Maoists attacked the temporary base camp at Pili on Sunday night. According to the RNA?s Directorate of Public Relations, 112 armymen who had been out of contact since the clash have linked up with the reinforced troops in Manma, the district headquarters of Kalikot. The temporary base camp was manned by a company and troops, including 100 non-combatant workers. As many as 50 security men are still missing. ?Mutilated bodies have been found, which shows that the soldiers were tortured before being shot,? RNA spokesperson, Brigadier
General Dipak Kumar Gurung, said. Meanwhile, our correspondent in Surkhet quoted a highly-placed security source as saying that the 112 security personnel came into contact by 4 pm today at the district headquarters and the nearby Tandi base camp.
Chief of the road construction team, Major Raju Devkota, arrived this morning at the base camp in Tandi, the source said. Reinforcements that arrived at the site of the clash yesterday evening took the situation under control by 11 am today, the source added. The security forces have begun the process of identifying the 40 bodies recovered, another security source in Kalikot said. According to the source, the possibility of the other missing personnel coming into contact cannot be ruled out. As many as six helicopters, including private ones, have been lifting the bodies and the wounded personnel from the area. Choppers were seen
making the rounds the whole day today in Manma and its adjoining areas, a local journalist Narayan Giri said over telephone. Villagers who had been working on the construction of the road in the area have not returned to Manma, he added. The aerial strike in the area after the clash may have claimed the lives of civilians. However, the same could not be confirmed.
