Guns and Roses: Protesters Offer Flowers to Cops on Duty

In a rare gesture, protesters demanding the restoration of constitutional monarchy and the Hindu kingdom offered flowers to police personnel during a rally in Kathmandu on Sunday. 

The gesture from protesters can even as police arrested leaders of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party, the fifth largest party in the federal parliament, including party Chair Rajendra Lingden and Chief Whip Gyanendra Shahi, for protesting in Singhadurbar, the seat of the federal government secretariat, while they were about to join in the protesters at the Maitighar Mandala-Baneshwor stretch, another section declared a no-go area that has nerve centers like the Kathmandu district court and the federal parliament. 

Ironically, the fresh arrests come even as protesters continue to demand the immediate release of two senior RPP leaders—Dhawal Shumsher Rana and Rabindra Mishra—arrested after the March 28 protest in which a young journalist and a young transport worker died in suspicious circumstances marked by arson, looting, vandalism and what many analysts describe as a disproportionate use of police force. 

The April 20 protests come days after the RPP staged a mass gathering in Balkhu.