GAUHATI, Feb 21: Troops in the isolated Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan captured at least eight communist rebels over a series of bombings that were apparently intended to disrupt coming elections, an official said on Thursday.

The suspects, detained last week, were members of the Communist Party of Bhutan (Maoist-Leninist) a group that was blamed for a Feb-4 explosion in Bhutan’s southwest and four other blasts across the country in January, said police official Kipchu Namgyel.No casualties were reported in the February bombing. One person was wounded in the January explosions.

The Communist Party of Bhutan (Maoist-Leninist) could not be reached for comment on the detentions.

The extremely rare violence in the Buddhist kingdom was believed to be linked to March elections that will introduce democracy to the long-time absolute monarchy of Bhutan, Namgyel said. The king will remain enthroned as a figurehead after the vote for a parliament.

“The Maoists seem to be trying to disrupt the March 24 parliamentary elections in Bhutan, but we are on strict vigil and not taking chances,” Namgyel said by telephone from the capital, Thimphu.

Unrest in the country dates back to the early 1990s when more than 100,000 ethnic Nepalis, a predominantly Hindu minority in Bhutan, fled or were forced to leave by authorities who wanted to impose Buddhist culture nationwide.

The rebels have said the elections will not be fair because ethnic Nepalis from Bhutan have been excluded from the process.

Bhutan has refused to take the refugees back. It said most left voluntarily, an argument the Nepalis hotly dispute. Several communist rebel groups have risen among the refugees in their camps in nearby eastern Nepal, where most of them now live.

Bhutanese authorities captured the communist suspects last week during raids on ethnic Nepalese refugee camps in southern Bhutan near the Indian border. The blasts have triggered concern across the usually peaceful country.

“If we look at the history of war-torn regions in the world, many began with a single blast,” Bhutan’s state-controlled newspaper Kuensel said in a Feb 16 editorial. “We do not need to lose lives before we start worrying.”—AP