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Nepal police chief assassinated
KATHMANDU, Nepal (CNN) -- Three suspected Maoist rebels have shot dead Nepal's most senior paramilitary officer in an early morning attack that also left his wife and a bodyguard dead, government officials said. A senior Home Ministry official told CNN that Krishna Mohan Shrestha, the Inspector General of the Armed Police Force, was killed instantly when the unidentified gunmen opened fire at short range on Sunday, the officials said. Shrestha was on a regular morning walk just south of the capital Kathmandu with his wife and the bodyguard. "They died on the spot," said a police officer near the area of the shooting. The attack happened around 7:35 a.m. local time (0150 GMT). Though no one has taken responsibility for the shooting, nor is it immediately clear who carried out the attack, suspicion has fallen on Maoist rebels who have stepped up their violent campaign in recent days. Shrestha is the highest-level police officer to be killed since a Maoists uprising began in early 1996 demanding to turn Nepal into a republican state. More than 7,200 people have died in the insurgency so far, according to government estimates. Shrestha led the Armed Police Force, a paramilitary force of more than 15,000 members established only one and half years ago to battle the Maoist rebels. The APF, along with the Royal Nepalese Army, has been at the forefront of the fight. The rebel hit comes in the wake of fighting in the northwestern district of Syangja where security forces, including the APF, claimed to have killed at least four rebels over the weekend and trapped dozens more.
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