Maoist guerrillas launched a string of attacks across Nepal that killed 37 people after a state of emergency was extended, officials said today.
The rebels hurled a bomb at a police post in the remote Sallyan district in west Nepal, killing 32 policemen and wounding 15 others late last night.
"They came in the hundreds and they asked local villagers, including women and children, to accompany them as human shields," said Mr Rudranath Basyal, chief district officer of the Sallyan district.
Rebels also threw a petrol bomb at a truck in Chitaun district, 80 miles southwest of Kathmandu early today, killing five people and injuring four.
A crude bomb planted by suspected rebels in a garbage bin also exploded today in a residential part of Kathmandu, wounding one man, police said.
The attacks came as the rebels called for a two-day general strike across the poverty-ridden nation starting today to mark the six-year anniversary of their uprising. In the past, vehicles defying a strike order by the rebels have been attacked.
The raids also follow an overwhelming vote by parliament yesterday to extend by three months emergency rule giving security forces sweeping powers to fight the rebels seeking to oust the constitutional monarchy and set up a communist republic.
Nepal's junior Home (Interior) Minister Mr Devendra Raj Kandel told Reutersmore soldiers had been rushed to Sallyan, near the Accham district, where 167 people died in the rebels' bloodiest raids on the weekend.