An emergency meeting of the Special Committee on Tuesday has decided to bring all the remaining 15 cantonments under the Nepal Army. The decision to this effect was taken following a protest by the disqualified combatants, who have been demanding guarantee of integration of the selected combatants and appropriate compensation to the disabled.

Earlier today, Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai, who also heads the Special Committee, had ordered the halt in the regrouping processes, considering a possible confrontation between the combatants in the cantonments. The disqualified combatants had prevented the committee officials from entering the cantonments.

The UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal had proposed the deployment of the army to the cantonments during the meeting in the presence of top leaders of major four parties. The meeting endorsed a four-point decision and directed the government to make necessary arrangements for deploying Nepal Army personnel in all the 15 cantonments.

After the meeting the Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai called on the Nepal Army Chief Chhatraman Singh Gurung and directed him to implement the SC’s decision. He asked the army chief to work with the spirit of integration and assist in the peace process.

According to the agreement, security personnel of the NA, Armed Police Force and Nepal Police will be deployed to the Maoist cantonments under the leadership of NA. The SC teams will carry out regrouping of the combatants to select some 6500 combatants for integration and place the rest under the voluntary retirement scheme.

About 9,700 combatants had opted for integration in the last regrouping. Therefore, the government had given a second chance for the combatants who had opted for integration to choose between voluntary retirement and rehabilitation.

With handover of the Maoist combatants, arms and cantonments to NA, the Maoist party has become a full-fledged civilian party. However, the Maoist hardliners has termed the handover of the PLA combatants to Nepal Army as 'betrayal' and said they would protest against it.

This has further widened the fissure within the Maoist party. However, Netra Bikram Chand ruled out split of the party immediately. “The treacherous decision has put us in difficult situation working together,” he said in an interview with BBC Nepali.

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