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Pushpa Adhikari in Kathmandu
Emergency was on Monday night clamped in Nepal after weekend Maoist violence left more than 200 people dead.
The emergency will be in force for three months and can be extended for another three months after parliament's approval, a royal palace spokesman said.
Following a recommendation by the Nepalese cabinet, King Gyanendra issued a proclamation imposing the emergency.
The proclamation would empower the government to use army for the first time to tackle the Maoists. The government had earlier desisted from taking the measure fearing it would set off a civil war in the tiny Himalayan Kingdom.
Around 150 Maoists were reported killed on Sunday night after a major battle between rebels and security forces.
Media reports on Sunday said Maoist rebels have captured yet another hill district, Solukhumbu, bordering Tibet, some 600 km northeast of capital Kathmandu, but suffered heavy casualties.
Home Minister Khum Bahadur Khadka confirmed four soldiers, 25 police inspectors and chief district officers have been killed.
Their bodies, along with those of the 150 rebels, have been recovered.
The Maoists, fighting to establish a republic in Nepal, have waged an insurgency for six years in Nepal in which more than 2,000 people have died.
But the Sunday night attack and the subsequent firefight have been the most serious to date.
This is the second time that emergency has been declared in the country. In December 1960, the then King Mahendra had declared an emergency, toppling the elected government of B P Koirala, brother of Girija Koirala, who is now the ruling Nepali Congress party president.
Analysts are afraid of a repeat of the 1960 developments following the emergency, during which King Mahendra introduced a single party Panchayat system that lasted for 30 years, until democracy was restored in 1990.
Indo-Asian News Service
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