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The last time Krishna Lama was able to use his legs, it was to jump from a two-storey building. He was fleeing from the frontline of Nepal's political battle, chased by armed police, only to find himself trapped between a certain thrashing and an uncertain fall. He chose the latter.
Coming to in a hospital a few hours later, miles away from his last memories in Gongabu, a suburb of Katmandu, Krishna found himself unable to feel much below his neck. Sensation may never return, say doctors. But the loss, says the 26-year-old taxi driver, will be bearable if it helps end the Shah dynasty that has ruled the Himalayan kingdom for 237 years.
Krishna is a victim of a political war fought last week on the periphery of Nepal's capital. Ranged against King Gyanendra, a chain-smoking royal who seeks advice from astrologers, is almost every section of society.
Doctors, lawyers, housewives, ex-soldiers, students and many others marched every day last week in defiance of curfew orders, some waving party flags, others holding up effigies of the monarch. The struggle has cost at least 15 lives and has seen hundreds injured and thousands detained.
Saturday, hours after the king offered to "hand power back to the people", the demonstrators were back on the streets with their reply - 100,000 massed on the ring road to march on the royal palace. The authorities quickly cut mobile phone connections - text messages were being used to co-ordinate protests.
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