KATHMANDU

The security supervisor for the US embassy in Nepal was yesterday shot dead at his house by three gunmen, officials said.

Deepak Prasad Pokharel was sleeping at his home in Kathmandu when three assailants entered, shot him at close range and escaped, a home ministry official said.

Police have not caught any suspects, but local radio said the attack was likely carried out by Maoist rebels who are fighting to topple the monarchy and are staunchly anti-American.

Meanwhile, three women were seriously injured after a bomb ripped through central Kathmandu ahead of a Maoist rebel strike to protest King Gyanendra's dismissal of the government.

The bomb was planted in the compound of a Buddhist temple in the capital's Tebahal area. The target was likely a police post guarding the nearby headquarters of Royal Nepal Airlines, police said.

The blast shattered windows in the state air carrier's office, injuring three elderly women who were praying.

They were taken to hospital where their condition was described as serious.

In other developments, the leaders of Nepal's major political parties stood up Prime Minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand at his first official function since being appointed by Gyanendra a month ago.

Chand had invited the heads of the six parties from the dissolved parliament to his official residence to celebrate Constitution Day, which marks the 1990reinstatement of democracy after three decades of absolute royal rule.

But the parties are enraged that Gyanendra on October 4 sacked elected premier Sher Bahadur Deuba, judging him "incompetent," and then appointed Chand, who is considered to be a stauch royalist.

Around2 , 000demonstrators, demanding immediate parliamentary elections, marched through Kathmandu.

Political leaders, teachers and students joined in the peaceful demonstration organised by the Nepal Students Union, a student wing of the opposition Nepali Congress (Democratic) party.

At least 11 human rights activists were detained when they held a demonstration to pressure the government to call elections, witnesses said.

The arrested included Krishna Pahadi, president of the Human Rights and Peace Society, one of the kingdom's leading rights groups.

Pokharel supervised security arrangements for US government institutions in Nepal, including the embassy.

It was the second killing of a security official at a US institution in Nepal in the past 11 months.

On December 15 last year a guard at the mission of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in Kathmandu, Ramesh Manandhar, was shot dead while on duty in another attack attributed to the Maoists.

No one has been apprehended in Mandahar's killing and the US embassy in Kathmandu just last week offered a500 ,000-rupee (about BD2,552) reward for information leading to the arrest of the assailants.

The Maoists have been fighting since 1996 to topple the constitutional monarchy and establish a Communist state.

-- Anonymous, November 10, 2002