The farmers said that some Maoist People"s Liberation Army (PLA) combatants, who are supposed to remain inside UN-monitored cantonments, were among those involved in looting the paddy.[break]
The Maoists stated that the paddy was distributed to freed kamaiya (bonded laborers), landless squatters and flood-hit people.
About 200 Maoists loaded the paddy onto tractor trailers and took it away from fields belonging to Shankarman Bohara, Khem Raj Pandey, Prem Dhungana and Khadak Bir Chaudhary.
The Maoists had locked up the farmers inside their own houses while loading the paddy onto the tractors. ´A large group of cadres arrived at our place chanting Maoist slogans.
Their faces were masked. When I tried to talk to them they punched me in the face and locked me inside a room. Some of them were instructing other cadres to set fire to the house,´ Bohara said.
He said the group used a vehicle from the PLA camp to transport the paddy.
The Maoist district in-charge in Kailali confirmed the indicent. ´The land was under Maoist control for the last eight years. We harvested the paddy from land that was under our party"s control,´ he said, adding, ´We don"t know if anyone had bought the land even after learning that it was under our control.´
He said that they distributed the paddy to freed kamaiya, landless squatters and flood-hit people.
According to Chief District Officer Hari Krishna Poudel, police are preparing to file a case against seven persons involved in looting the paddy from the farmers" land at Chuha.
´Jivan´, Acting Commander of the PLA Seventh Division, said no PLA combatant was involved in the incident.
He claimed that the allegation against PLA men was a conspiracy to defame the PLA hatched by those who want the peace process to fail.
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