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Bhattarai demands editor's release

Former Nepal prime minister and senior leader of the ruling Nepali Congress, K P Bhattarai, demanded the immediate release of Kantipur editor Yubaraj Ghimre and two senior executives of the newspaper.

The three were arrested by the Kathmandu police, on charges of sedition, on Wednesday evening.

The Nepali Congress government is headed by Prime Minister G P Koirala.

Ghimre, the managing director and director of Kantipur Publications, were arrested for publishing an article by Maoist ideologue Baburam Bhatarai, blaming India and the United States of America for conspiring to eliminate King Birendra.

Maoists are outlawed because of a bloody 'people's war' they have been carrying out in the countryside, in which over 1000 people have died.

The three will be in police custody till Monday, when courts reopen after national mourning.

"It is the most unwise act of the government," Bhattarai said at his residence. "He should be released forthwith," he said.

The former prime minister argued that Kantipur was Nepal's most popular daily and it was always known for its journalistic ethics. If the government wanted to take action against the article, it should have acted against Bhattarai, who wrote it, he felt.

The former prime minister said the royal massacre was an "act of a mad person, and the law will take its own course".

He justified the formation of a probe committee headed by the chief justice of Nepal. Bhattarai said there was nothing inappropriate about King Gyanendra announcing the probe committee, because "even cabinet ministers take the oath of office from the king".

He termed opposition leader Madhav Nepal's reasons for resigning from the three-member committee as a 'lame excuse'.

Bhattarai said there was no threat to the monarchy and "everybody must support the new king".

The NC leader said that there should not be any doubt about the new king's objectives and commitment to democracy, after his address to the nation. He had committed himself to democracy and the ideals of the late King Birendra, he said.

"There is no threat to democracy," he added.

He supported Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's statement that the developments in Nepal were an internal problem of Nepal.

Death of a Monarch: The Complete Coverage

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