Maoists have continued their attacks on schools across the country by bombing the school in Kailali run by the high school teacher of their leader, Baburam Bhattarai. A dozen or so armed Maoists entered the school ground on the night of 16 October in Tikapur, threatened the guards, ransacked the offices and blew up the main building after wiring it up with explosives.

The non-profit school was run by T Varughese, a south Indian teacher who had spent eight years at the Luitel School in Gorkha where Baburam Bhattarai was his student in the 1960s. Also in the same class as Baburam was the health minister in the interim cabinet and famour neurosurgeon, Upendra Devkota. After leaving Gorkha, Varughese had spent the past 25 years building and running three schools in Nepal's remote western Kailali district which focussed on education for underprivileged children.

Varughese was in the United States when the attack happened and the 500 students were on Dasain holiday. Sources in Kailali said the school had received several extortion threats in the recent past and was one of the last-remaining non-government schools still open in the far-western district.

The school that was bombed was named after Khadga Bahadur Singh, who launched the Tikapur Development Project. The school was expanding fast, and a new wing had been added. Varughese was also planning to add a 10+2 section to meet the demand for students who would otherwise have to go to India or Kathmandu for further studies. These plans will now be shelved, it is learnt.

Varughese came to Tikapur in 1973 and first set up a high school, which was inaugurated by King Birendra and was later called Birendra Vidya Mandir and still has 1,000 students as well as a dormitory for out-of-town students.