Chitwan, July 9

The agitating Maoist combatants of the third division in Shaktikhor Saturday halted their protests .They were protesting the Nepal Army’s recruitment decisions regarding age, education and physical fitness from Friday.

The combatants halted their protests after the government pledged to reconsider their demands.

They said the recruitment procedures adopted by the Nepal Army would stop many of the combatants from being integrated into the army.

Battalion commander Devi Prasad Dhakal said that the meeting of the combatants held at the third division camp decided to halt the protests after the government took their demands seriously.

"We were compelled to launch the protest as the integration process was becoming like a new recruitment process. We felt insulted the officials started measuring our combatants’ height and academic qualifications as compulsory," commander Dhakal said.

Platoon commander Narayan Prasad Baral said that they would not resume their protest if the government showed the flexibility as agreed for the integration.

Commander Baral, however, warned of resuming the protests in case normal recruitment procedures were applied during the integration process.

The combatants of the third division had expressed their dissatisfaction over the integration process organizing a press meet outside the camp on Friday.

This affected the process although 70 combatants had filled the forms for integration in the Nepal Army.

The combatants also demanded economic transparency and accused division commander Dhana Bahadur Maski of indulging in financial irregularities in constructing toilets, collecting levies and repairing the infrastructure.

They demanded stern action against Maski.

Six hundred and twenty five, out of 3,123, combatants are housed the third division at Shaktikhor.