Chitwan/kathmandu, June 23 -- On Sunday, Nepali Congress President Gagan Thapa called attention to an obscure, violent chapter from the early days of the partyless Panchayat era. Speaking at the opening session of the Rastriya Swatantra Party's first general convention in Chitwan, Thapa said that the sacrifices made by the Congress during the struggle for democracy should not be forgotten-and that the democratic system enjoyed today was the result of that struggle.

"Please do not say that nothing happened during those 35 years," he said. "Please do not undermine the stories of the 30-year struggle against the Panchayat system. Beneath the very ground where you are standing lie the bodies of around 50 people buried there in 1962."

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