KATHMANDU (AFP) — Hindu priests burned tyres and blocked a main road in Nepal's capital Monday in protest at a decision by the Maoist government to expel Indian priests who have officiated at the country's main Hindu temple for centuries.
The officially-atheist ex-rebel Maoists won elections last year and their leader Prachanda has replaced Nepal's deposed king as the patron of the Pashupati temple trust.
Last week, the Maoist-appointed head of the trust said that the southern Indian Brahmins who have led religious rituals at the temple for at least 260 years had been replaced by local holy men.
Around 150 priests and their supporters enraged at the appointments blocked a busy road close to the ancient temple complex Monday afternoon, chanting "Down with the Maoists," and "Prachanda, thief, leave the country."
"The Maoists have mixed politics with the Hindu religion," Hariharman Bhandari, a local priest taking part in the protest, told AFP.
"We will continue our protests until the Maoists stop political appointments at the temple," said the priest.
Parmananda Shakya, the head of the temple trust, said that the new appointments were needed to control "financial irregularities" in the donations left by around one million pilgrims who visit the temple annually.
A sprawling complex of cremation sites and pagodas rising from the banks of the Bagmati river in Kathmandu, the UNESCO-listed Pashupati temple complex dates back to the third century BC.
Nepal's former king Gyanendra made a rare public statement Saturday, appealing for politics to be left out of temple affairs.
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