Bloody end to Nepal protest

By Sanjoy Majumder BBC News, Kathmandu

Saturday morning in Kathmandu and Nepal's capital city bustles with activity before a daytime curfew is imposed from noon.

People queue up outside shops stocking up on food - bread, milk and vegetables and other essential provisions.

But already there are signs that the protests we have witnessed for the past two days are far from over.

Kalanki is a hilly suburb south-west of the capital, an area which witnessed some of the worst violence.

It was here that three protesters were shot dead by police only two days ago.

The mood on Saturday, however, is peaceful and groups of people begin arriving at a key intersection.

| Nobody is happy with what the king said. We want democracy and freedom Maya Regni housewife

Riot police watch from a distance as the crowd occasionally breaks into chants.

Most people are discussing the king's speech delivered on Friday in which he invited the country's principle political parties to name a new prime minister.

For the protesters, it amounted to very little.

"He is only offering us what he had snatched from us in 2005," says Baldev Pokhara, a teacher.

"He should listen to the people. Let us decide whether he has a role to play or not."

Maya Regni, a housewife, agrees.

"Nobody is happy with what the king said. We want democracy and freedom," she says.

"So many people have died. What for? So that the king can continue to live in his palace and appoint and dismiss prime ministers at will?"

Breaking through

For the past two days, the protesters have been kept confined to the ring road which circumnavigates the city, with only a few instances of people breaking through.

But the mood shifts dramatically on Saturday, when groups of protesters break through the police ranks and start moving towards the city centre.

One group of several thousand protesters began marching from the south towards the royal palace.

They pushed and jostled past the initial ring of policemen and broke into a trot, cheering, clapping and whistling.

"We want democracy, we want a republic," they chanted.

| The once peaceful lanes of Ason are littered with shoes and slippers - and spent cartridges of rubber bullets and tear gas canisters.

Most of them are young men in their teens and 20s but there are also quite a few women.

They carry party flags and broken of branches of small trees, symbolising victory.

"Gyane," they roared using the diminutive form of the king's name, "leave the country."

They are stopped some four kilometres from the palace as police and soldiers plead with them to go back.

Finally the crowd relents and pushes along a side street.

The mood is decidedly celebratory and the heavily armed security forces, some of them standing behind rolls of chicken wire, can only watch.

Baton charge

But elsewhere the mood turns ugly.

South-east of the palace is Ason, a historical market-square leading into narrow lanes lined with ancient, wooden buildings.

As we arrive there, riot police in full battle gear several rows deep take up positions, blocking the way to the palace.

On the other end are hundreds of protesters, chanting and pushing forward.

Suddenly the police charge into the crowd, striking them with their batons.

Several shots ring out as tear-gas canisters and rubber bullets are fired into the crowd.

Many of them fall down, unable to scramble back through the narrow lanes.

Several of them are beaten badly.

I saw one young boy beaten on the head with a baton.

Minutes later some people lift him and carry him towards the medical teams which had also taken up position.

One person holds on to his head, where blood is streaming out of an open wound.

With the protest broken up, the police head back.

The once peaceful lanes of Ason are littered with shoes and slippers - and spent cartridges of rubber bullets and tear-gas canisters.

For now at least, the security forces are not willing to relent in the face of public pressure.