WOMAN SHOT DEAD IN BANKE

WOMAN SHOT DEAD IN BANKE
Kathmandu, 19 Jan.: A woman died when a gang of criminals opened fire at her in Holiya of Banke district, RSS reports from Banke.

Nahana Yadav, 52, of Holiya-2 died after the gang arrived here from the border area of India attacked her.

A police team led by Superintendent of Police, Bikram Singh Thapa arrested two among the assaulters from the site.

The group, which frequently used to carry out looting in the village, is said to have targeted the family of local Bahadur Yadav.

The group opened fire at Bahadur's wife Nahana while she was running away from them, last night.

Earlier, the villagers had filed complaints against the looters with the Indian Police.
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HOUSE COMMITTEE CALLS FOR LOCAL ELECTIONS
Kathmandu, 19 Jan.: Minister for Local Development Top Bahadur Rayamajhi has said local bodies' election could be held if consensus was forged among the senior leaders of the major political parties, RSS reports.

However, he said the first priority of the nation is peace and constitution writing and if other issues were taken up in the middle of it, the peace process would be disrupted.

Speaking at a meeting of the Development Committee under the Legislature-Parliament in Singha Durbar on Thursday, the Minister for Local Development stressed on the need of forging an understanding among the political parties saying that the election is the best alternative after scrapping of the all-party mechanism formed to run local bodies.

He said, "The government will undertake necessary initiation for the local bodies' election after May 27 once the tasks for the peace and constitution writing process were concluded.

Lawmakers, Purna Kumar Serma Limbu, Jivanprem Shrestha, Durga Linkha, Krishna Prasad Sapkota, Padma Aryal, and Taranarayan Shrestha among others, stressed on the need of holding the election at the earliest at the absence of the all-party mechanism.

The lawmakers said local bodies could not be run effectively just by local government employees after the dismissal of the all-party mechanism and suggested for finding alternative solution to this.

The government had decided to dissolve the all-party mechanism with effect from Wednesday as per the directive of the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) following reports of corruption and irregularities by such a mechanism at the local level.

At the meeting, the Committee Chair Jitendra Prasad Sonal directed the Ministry of Local Development to look for an alternative to the all-party mechanism and fix a date for the local elections.

Currently, the Local Development Officer at the DDC and the Executive Officer at the Municipality have been assigned to assume the responsibilities of the all-party mechanism at the local bodies.
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ABDUCTED AND KILLED IN SINDHUPALCHOWK
Kathmandu, 19 Jan.: Yam Prasad Timalshina, 55, was murdered Wednesday after abduction in Sindhupalchowk
His body was found Thursday in Baharabishe, police said.
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