Nepal bomb blast kills four

KATHMANDU: Four people were killed and more than 20 wounded when a bomb attached to a motorbike went off near a crowd of protesters in southern Nepal on Monday, police said.

The group of 150 demonstrators had been staging a sit-in when the bike exploded in the religious hub of Janakpur, 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the Indian border, said local police chief Basanta Raj Gautam.

"One of the protesters died on the spot while three died on their way to hospital. We have referred around seven seriously injured victims for treatment to Kathmandu," he told AFP.

"Over 20 people who sustained minor injures from the blast are being treated at various hospitals in the district."

Nepal has enjoyed an uneasy calm since rebel Maoists waged a 10-year war against the government until a peace accord was signed in 2006. The country's parliament is nearing a deadline to write a peacetime constitution which will divide the country into federal provinces, and the protesters had been pressing their demands with a city-wide strike.