Army shoots Nepali students REUTERS[ FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 04, 2005 11:53:13 AM ] Indiatimes NEW DELHI: The Nepali army, under direct control of the king after he sacked the government and assumed power, fired from helicopters at student protesters, wounding at least 15, an Indian newspaper reported on Friday. It is the first report of violence from the Himalayan kingdom since the king's February 1 move, which has drawn widespread global condemnation. The report, published in an English daily, said the shooting took place in the town of Pokhara hours after King Gyanendra fired the prime minister, declared a state of emergency and took charge of the country himself for the next three years. Immediately after the royal proclamation, students at Pokhara's Prithvi Narayan College came out in protest and prevented soldiers from entering the campus to halt the demonstration, the daily said, quoting unidentified sources in a despatch from Kathmandu. Held at bay on the ground, the army responded with helicopters, firing at the protesters from the air, it said. About 15 students were shot and then moved to army barracks rather than hospital, it added. The detained students were being tortured and it was not known if any had died of their wounds, the daily said, calling the incident Nepal's "own version of Tiananmen Square" after the 1989 Chinese military crackdown in which hundreds were killed in Beijing. Pokhara, a tourist resort about 200 km west of Kathmandu, is a famous tourist destination. "We have information that there was such an incident from very reliable sources," the report quoted Kedar Prasad Poudyal, secretary of Nepal's National Human Rights Commission, as saying. Nepal has been largely cut off from the world as Gyanendra has shut down all communications and Internet services and imposed strict media censorship, banning reports critical of the monarch's decisions. Several political leaders have been placed under house arrest or jailed to prevent street protests against the king.