KATHMANDU (AFP) — A minister and three members of Nepal's parliament have resigned over the government's failure to tackle ethnic and communal violence in the south of the country, officials said Monday.
Since the start of the year, around 200 people have been killed in unrest in the southern plains region known as the Terai.
At least a dozen armed groups have sprung up in the last 12 months claiming to be fighting for increased autonomy for the region, home to around half on Nepal's 27 million people.
Hridayesh Tripathi, a member of Nepal's interim parliament, told AFP that the politicians resigned because of "the state's indifferent attitude to the problems of the Mahadhesi community in the Terai region."
Mahadhesi activists say that their region has long been neglected by Kathmandu and that hill-origin, high caste groups dominate Nepali politics.
A peace deal between Nepal's former rebel Maoists and mainstream political parties ended a bloody decade of civil war late last year, but the ongoing unrest in the southern region has cast a shadow over the landmark pact.
Along with Tripathi, Nepal's Minister for Science and Technology Mahanta Thakur has quit as well as two other members of Nepal's interim parliament.
The four politicians belong to four different political parties including the country's largest, the Nepali Congress party.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
