CHONG ZI LIANG WHAT TO DO: Anganu Chaudary and Ram Kumar Chaudary, part of a group of 16 from a village in Bardiya, prepare to return home after being told at a cantonment in Surkhet that the Maoists are not recruiting.

It took Anganu Chaudhary and Ram Kumar Chaudhary four hours by bus to get to the Surkhet cantonment to apply to join the Maoist army, but they will return home disappointed. Together with 14 friends from the same village in Bardia, the two had been hoping to join the People's Liberation Army.

They had heard on FM that the Maoists were accepting applications, but news of the Supreme Court stay order failed to reach them. And such is the desperation for jobs, that many like Chaudhary rushed to the cantonments.

"I only studied till the 5th grade s o I can't join the national army," explained Chaudary, "and none of my friends have passed SLC."

At the main cantonment in Surkhet, 6th Division Commander Pratik confirms that recruitment went on for about a week in early March and he received 1,800 applications. "We stopped recruitment out of respect for the Supreme Court's decision," he says, "but even after that at least a thousand more turned up at the camps."

The Maoists announced recruitment to retaliate against the Nepal Army going through with the induction of 3,000 recruits, and called for applications through radio. But the Supreme Court ruled that the Maoists had violated the 2006 peace accord.

Meanwhile, Chaudary says he will try again if the PLA re-opens the application process. As he packs his bags to return home, he tells Nepali Times that jobs are non-existent in his village. Staring blankly, he says: "My parents will be disappointed. They were the ones who told me to go for the PLA."