KATHMANDU, Sept 12 (Agencies): At least 51 people have been killed during violent anticorruption protests in Nepal this week, and thousands of prisoners who escaped during the chaos remain on the run, according to police, as the country’s former Chief Justice Sushila Karki appears set to be appointed interim prime minister.
Police spokesperson Binod Ghimire said on Friday that those killed so far this week included 21 protesters, nine prisoners, three police officers and 18 others, without elaborating. Another 1,300 people were injured as police fought to control crowds.
The announcement comes as political uncertainty engulfs the nation, with Nepal’s President Ramchandra Paudel and army chief Ashok Raj Sigdel preparing to meet later on Friday with Karki and a leading youth activist.
Ghimire added that more than 12,500 prisoners who escaped from multiple jails countrywide remain on the run. “About 13,500 prisoners had escaped – some have been recaptured, 12,533 are still at large.”
The dead included prisoners killed during or after their escape in clashes with Nepalese security forces.
Some of the fugitives have reportedly tried to cross into India, where scores have been apprehended by Indian border forces.
Nepal’s army, which has imposed a curfew, said that it had recovered more than 100 guns looted in the turmoil, with some protesters seen brandishing automatic rifles.
“Sushila Karki will be appointed interim prime minister,” a constitutional expert consulted by Paudel and Sigdel, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters news agency.
“They [Gen Z] want her. This will happen today,” the source added, referring to the “Gen Z” protesters whose name derives from the age of most participants.
Karki is “seen as an anticorruption voice, so she’s acceptable to a lot of the Gen Z groups that have been firing up this movement, because corruption has been a big issue,” said Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride, reporting from the capital Kathmandu. “But while she’s popular with them, she’s not necessarily popular with other groups … so she’s seen as a consensus candidate.”
Meanwhile, Nepal's president and army sought on Friday to find a consensus interim leader to fill a political vacuum after deadly anti-corruption protests toppled the government and left parliament in flames.
The Himalayan nation of 30 million people was plunged into chaos this week after security forces tried to crush rallies by young anti-corruption protesters, culminating in widespread violence on Tuesday.
The military took back control of the streets on Wednesday, enforcing a curfew, as army chief General Ashok Raj Sigdel and President Ramchandra Paudel held talks with key figures and representatives from "Gen Z", the loose umbrella title of the youth protest movement.
Disagreements between rival factions remain, although Sushila Karki, 73, Nepal's first woman chief justice, is a leading candidate.
"A meeting has been scheduled for this afternoon with the president, the army chief, former chief justice Sushila Karki, our representative Sudan Gurung and one legal expert," Nimesh Shrestha, who was part of the Gen Z protest, told AFP.
Karki has told AFP that "experts need to come together to figure out the way forward", and that "the parliament still stands".
Gurung, the youth activist, told reporters on Thursday that their "first demand is the dissolution of parliament".
Paudel issued a statement to the nation on Thursday saying that "a solution to the problem is being sought, as soon as possible".
The army patrolled the largely quiet streets of the capital Kathmandu for a third day on Friday, after the protests and nationwide chaos that included a mass breakout of prisoners.
India hardliners give Nepal protests baseless religious twist
Protesters in Nepal ousted the prime minister and set parliament ablaze over the government's ban on social media and corruption allegations -- but in neighbouring India, the violence is being misrepresented online as something else entirely: a religious uprising.
While some claim that the demonstrations are a demand for a "Hindu state", others say the opposite -- that they are an attack on the faith.
Fuelling the narrative are allegations from Indian broadcasters and politicians that rioters vandalised Nepal's Pashupatinath temple, a revered Hindu site in the Himalayan nation.
"Some rioters, hiding within the crowd of protesters, attempted to vandalise the temple, and it was only after this incident that the army was deployed," an anchor for the right-wing Zee News television channel said in a report featuring a clip of people climbing onto the temple's gate and violently shaking it.
