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KATHMANDU - Nepalese authorities clamped an indefinite curfew on a southern town after a bomb attack on a mosque killed two people and sparked violent reprisals, police said Saturday.
Three blasts hit the mosque in Biratnagar, 220 kilometres (137 miles) south-east of Kathmandu, heightening tensions in the volatile region ahead of key elections next month.
"Three small bombs went off inside the mosque killing two people," senior police officer Bidhyananda Majhi told AFP by telephone.
"Muslim people started to come into the street and attacked vehicles so we have imposed a curfew to avoid communal violence," he added.
Large numbers of extra police have been mobilised to enforce the curfew, senior official Madhav Prasad Regmi told AFP.
"Nobody has yet claimed responsibility, and police are investigating the incident," chief local official Madhav Prasad Regmi told AFP.
A reporter with the Kantipur media group said worshippers were praying inside the mosque when the bombs went off.
"There was panic in the neighbourhood after the explosions, but with the curfew, things are now quiet," Bhim Ghimire said.
Nepal is due to go to the polls in less than two weeks to elect a body that that will change the country's history by formally abolishing the world's last Hindu monarchy and rewriting the constitution.
The crucial polls could be undermined by the continued unrest in the southern Terai region, the United Nations and European Union have warned.
At least 200 people have been killed in Nepal's southern plains in ethnic and communal unrest that began after the country's former rebel Maoists and government made a landmark peace deal in late 2006.
In February, political parties representing the residents of the southern region -- known as Mahadhesis -- imposed a crippling two-week general strike that saw the landlocked country's capital starved of essential supplies.
Residents of impoverished Nepal's southern belt say they have long been excluded from Kathmandu's corridors of power and want increased representation in the government and army.
Since the unrest began in the Terai, around a dozen armed groups have emerged, most of whom say they are fighting for increased autonomy for the southern region.
Four of the groups had been due to begin negotiations with the government Saturday, but the talks failed, local media reported.
- AFP /ls
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