KATHMANDU: Usha Manandhar, 25, a nurse at the Medacity Hospital was heading towards her residence at around 8 o’clock on Friday night at Nakhhu in Lalitpur when she heard a loud bang of a bomb that exploded near the Ncell office.
She got injured in the explosion and fell down unconscious. When she gained her sense, she was in the hospital.
Pratikshya Khadka, 26, a resident of Bagdol in Lalitpur, too, was heading towards her residence and fell victim to the same explosion. Both Manandhar and Khadka are improving gradually, according to Dr. Anil Acharya at the Medicity Hospital.
However, victim Singha Prasad Gurung, 49, a resident of Bhainsepati area lost his life. Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa has assured that the government will bear the treatment cost of the injured and that the culprits in the incident will be brought to justice.
Likewise, a few moments later after the Nakhhu incident, a pressure cooker bomb was found near the Aangan Sweets, a restaurant at Kamalpokhari in Kathmandu. A bomb squad from the Nepal army immediately diffused the bomb.
Likewise, Ncell towers were torched in different locations yesterday night, one at Chandrakalika hill in Pokhara and the other at Shuklaphanta Municipality-4 in Kanchanpur district.
Series of blasts in several parts of the country by unidentified groups has alerted the police administration. “We are now on high alert,” said Uttam Raj Subedi, spokesperson of Nepal Police.
The police has initiated a manhunt after the incident, said Rabindra Dhanuk, the Chief at the Lalitpur Metropolitan Police.
Police have taken some people in custody in connection with the incident but are yet to identify the culprits. The police suspect that Biplab group is behind the incident. That is because the Biplab group, a breakaway faction of the then Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) had issued warnings to Ncell over charges of not paying tax to the government, not following the Supreme Court order, and deceiving its clients.
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