The Army Integration Special Committee (AISC) responsible for supervision, integration and rehabilitation of Maoist combatants has endorsed a plan of action to evacuate the Maoist combatants from People’s Liberation Army (PLA) cantonments and hand over the weapons stored in containers to Nepal Army by April 12.

A meeting of the AISC and top leaders of the three major parties – UCPN (Maoist), NC and CPN (UML) on Wednesday took a decision to this effect to conclude the important task of integration of Maoist combatants by April 12.

According to the action plan, from April 6 the AISC secretariat is sending its technical team to all the 13 cantonments to offer the voluntary retirement option for the second time to 9,705 combatants who have chosen integration into the Nepal Army during the regrouping process.

The technical team will also hand out paychecks to ex-Maoist combatants who opted for voluntary retirement during the regrouping process. They will then be released from the cantonments from Sunday and rehabilitation work will also kick off.

After that, the fighters who have opted for integration will be handed over to the Army by April 12.

The major parties agreed on the time-bound action plan despite differences on the structure of the proposed directorate under the Nepal Army, rank determination including bridging courses and training to be imparted to Maoist combatants who have shown willingness to join the Army. nepalnews.com