Gore in Gaur

KIRAN PANDAY

WARNING SIGNS: Businesspeople protesting Maoist excesses shut down the capital for two days earlier this week. Before that ended, the clashes in Gaur happened.

There was an eerie quiet in the town of Gaur before it erupted on Wednesday afternoon. It was almost as if residents knew there would be a violent confrontation between the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum and the Maoist-affiliated Tarai Mukti Morcha. Most of the 28 dead are Maoist cadres and civilians.

Eyewitnesses say the violence flared up when Morcha party activists rushed the MJF's stage and tried to destroy it, in retaliation for Forum members having wrecked the TMM stage in the same premises. A shot is said to have been fired into the crowd from south of the stage, inside the rice mill that owns the field. A stampede followed, during which witnesses say MJF activists attacked the Maoists with bamboo bars. Eight bodies were found in the field when the fighting died down. Residents say that the manner in which the other dead bodies are dispersed all over town, over a radius of a couple of kilometres, suggests that people were chased down and killed one by one.

The Home Ministry's failure to mediate between the groups and ensure public security is being seen as a major setback to the planned constituent assembly elections in June. The ministry, which called the incident "very violent", said in a press statement on Thursday: "We predicted violence when both the groups decided to hold their meetings at the same place [and time], which is why the local administration tried to talk to the groups. But they did not listen."

Gaur Superintendent of Police Ram Kumar Khanal says the local administration knew both groups had refused to back down, and that, as tensions heightened, "even United Nations representatives were kept posted on the situation". Sources in Gaur and Kathmandu say that the Home Ministry and local police was concerned primarily that government buildings would be attacked, and that security was only deployed at these locations and nowhere near the mill grounds.

The Maoist central committee has said it believes there was "foreign involvement" in the carnage. There are reports of meetings between MJF leaders and Indian politicians in a border town earlier this week, where the Forum was assured "full support" for their campaign. Meanwhile, other groups not part of either planned meeting, such as the Janatantrik Tarai Mukti Morcha (Jwala), Tarai Cobra, Independent Madhesh, and Madhesi Tiger are taking responsibility for the incident.

The CPN-M has planned a series of protests. Over 300 Maoist fighters from the Chulachuli camp in Ilam came out of the cantonments in protest, and Maoist central committee member Jayapuri Gharti told us that her party plans to bring the bodies of the 28 dead to Kathmandu and organise a parade.