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Thousands rally against Maoist insurgency

KATHMANDU May 10. Thousands of supporters of Nepal's seven mainstream parties rallied here today against the Maoist insurgency and the one-month ceasefire offer by the guerrillas.

The demonstration in which nearly 50,000 people participated came a day after Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Dueba, rejected an offer of a one-month unilateral ceasefire by Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal alias `Prachanda.'

``I doubt that the ceasefire announced by the Maoist leader through media is genuine,'' the Nepali Congress party president, Girija Prasad Koirala, said addressing the rally at Tundikhel Open Ground.

The Maoists should have informed national political parties about their ceasefire instead of issuing the statement through the press, he said. He, however, said he was not opposed to holding talks with the Maoists if they were sincere about it.

Cautioning against foreign interference in the wake of growing Maoist violence, the General Secretary of the Nepal Communist Party (United Marxist Leninist), Madhav Kumar Nepal, said no foreign army is required to fight the terrorists.

26 rebels killed

Twenty-six armed Maoist rebels have been killed in anti-terror operations by security forces since Thursday, the Defence Ministry said today.

A hoax

The Maoists' call for a month-long ceasefire beginning May 15 was a hoax and meant ``to teach a lesson to the media and the Maoists,'' the writer of yesterday's e-mail said in a message today.

Today's e-mail sent to various media organisations here said that the statement by Maoist leader Prachanda was a hoax. The writer, who identified himself as ``Bikram'' ,said in the second note written in Roman Nepali that he deliberately sent the hoax so that the media and the Maoists "could learn a lesson".

— PTI, UNI

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