KATHMANDU: Three persons, including a Nepalese Member of Parliament, were shot dead at Siraha district in the southern part of the country on Saturday morning.
Krishna Charan Shrestha, an MP belonging to the Rastriya Prajatantra Party was shot at near his house at Belha Village in the district, party sources said.
Two persons accompanying Shrestha were shot dead and two attackers were killed in retaliatory firing by villagers, they said.
Shrestha and the two were killed near a pond at Belha at 7.30 am when 15 to 20 gunmen attacked them while they were going for a morning walk, Keshav Katuwal, personal assistant of RPP President Pashupati Shumsher Rana said over the telephone.
The 64-year-old former minister died on the way to hospital, he added.
The villagers seized weapons from the armed group suspected to be members of the Janatantrik Tarai Morcha, a breakaway faction of Maoists.
Katuwal said the party suspected a Maoist hand in the incident. "But we do not have details as to why did the attack take place," he said.
Party President Pashupati Shumsher Rana will be soon fly to the area, some 400 km south-east of Kathmandu on the Indian border. Shrestha's body will be brought to Kathmandu for cremation.
This is the first such attack on a sitting member of Parliament after the ceasefire with Maoists.
