A Nepal town imposes a lockdown and beefs up security to prevent clashes between Hindus and Muslims

KATHMANDU – Despite temporarily escalating tensions between Hindus and Muslims, the night time handed peacefully after a lockdown was once imposed and security heightened in a town in southwest Nepal, officers stated.

Trouble started within the regional hub town of Nepalgunj over the weekend after a Hindu boy posted a standing about Muslims on social media. Muslims protested the standing within the area’s primary govt administrator’s administrative center development, burned tires at the streets and blocked site visitors.

A greater Hindu rally was once held Tuesday till stones and bottles have been thrown at protesters, leading to a few minor accidents.

The indefinite curfew was once imposed since Tuesday afternoon in Nepalgunj, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of the capital, Kathmandu, immediately after the Hindu protest got here underneath assault.

Area police leader Santosh Rathore stated officials have been patrolling town and other folks weren’t allowed to depart their houses or acquire in teams all through the lockdown. There have been no reviews of any hassle in a single day, nor on Wednesday morning.

Officials stated they wanted to impose the stay-at-home order and forestall other folks from collecting in combination to prevent to any extent further clashes between the 2 facets.

Communal violence isn’t commonplace in Nepal, which is a Hindu majority nation that became secular simply a few years in the past. Muslims make up more or less a 3rd of Nepalgunj’s inhabitants, and most effective about 14% of India’s inhabitants, which stocks a border with the Nepal town and has observed a widening religious divide.