Simara continued to witness unrest on Thursday as crowds returned to the streets and repeatedly clashed with police from the early hours of the morning.
With tensions rising, local authorities responded by enforcing a curfew from 1 pm to 8 pm. Assistant chief district officer Chhabiraman Subedi told ANI that the curfew had been reinstated in an effort to restore order after fresh confrontations broke out between demonstrators and police personnel.
The situation follows violent clashes a day earlier, during which six young protesters from the “Gen Z” movement were injured.
Reports from PTI indicate that political friction in the district intensified when leaders of the Unified Marxist-Leninist (UML) party prepared to visit the region ahead of the March 5, 2026 elections.
Police said trouble began when a Buddha Air aircraft, scheduled to fly UML general secretary Shankar Pokharel and youth leader Mahesh Basnet to Simara for an anti-government rally, became the focus of a confrontation. What started as a standoff quickly escalated, leading security forces to fire tear gas at demonstrators. Airport operations were suspended as the situation worsened.
Simara has seen deadly protests in recent months. In September, at least seventy-six people lost their lives during widespread demonstrations sparked by public outrage over a temporary government ban on social media. The movement, largely driven by young citizens rallying under the “Gen Z” banner, led to the resignation of then-Prime Minister KP Oli, who also headed the UML.
Following his departure, former Chief Justice Sushila Karki, aged seventy-three, was sworn in as Nepal’s first woman prime minister to lead an interim government.
