162 people arrested in Nepal

Police arrested 162 members of a Maoist splinter group across Nepal yesterday for vandalising vehicles and injuring two in a petrol bomb attack while trying to enforce a nationwide strike.

The protesters called on factories, schools and public transport to shut down across the Himalayan nation as they demanded the release of fellow cadres from the hardline faction, the Communist Party of Nepal Maoist.

The party workers were arrested earlier for allegedly vandalising property in different parts of the country.

"We have 162 people in custody for trying to block roads, vandalise vehicles and carrying petrol bombs," police spokesman Madhav Joshi told AFP.

Joshi said two men, including a truck driver, suffered injuries when demonstrators threw a petrol bomb at the vehicle in the southern district of Rautahat.

The truck was one of around a dozen vehicles attacked across the country. No other injuries have been reported, Joshi said.

The Maoists staged a ten-year insurgency against the state that ended in 2006, leaving 16,000 dead.

They are now a minority partner in government but have lost ground since winning a landslide victory in the Himalayan nation's first post-war elections in 2008.