Two children, who were seriously injured on Thursday afternoon in an explosion at Dadagaun of Phalelung Rural Municipality-5 in Panchthar district, died last night.

The eleven-year-old son Dipsan and two-and-a-half-year-old daughter Princa of Dilip Sanwa succumbed to their injuries. They were seriously hurt when a stray grenade went off while the kids were playing near the house of a Maoist cadre, Aitaraj (IB) Kerung.

Princa breathed her last at 10 pm Thursday in Ilam while being rushed to a hospital in Jhapa and Dipsan was pronounced dead at 1 am at the B & C Hospital Jhapa, according to District Police Office, Panchthar.

Immediately after the explosion, the three children were rushed to Panchthar Hospital, which referred them to Jhapa for further treatment.

The other injured child Pawan, a 9-year-old son of Gyan Bahadur Rai, is undergoing treatment at Panchthar Hospital. His health is stable, according to Dr Kiran Gautam, who is involved in his treatment.

According to Deputy Superintendent of Police Hemanta Bhandari, police, based on their preliminary investigation, have drawn a conclusion that the children were injured in a grenade explosion. Locals have suspected that the bomb might have been hidden during the decade-long Maoist insurgency that ended in 2006.

Meanwhile, Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak has said the bomb that exploded in Panchthar was a remnant of the Maoist war.

As the grenade went off near the home of a Maoist cadre, the police suspected it to have been planted during the insurgency period and they took the matter to the higher authorities.

“The explosive that went off there was a grenade. I asked police officials about the incident in detail as I talked to them at length,” Home Minister Lekhak told journalists at the ministry in Singha Durbar on Friday.

“Based on the information received so far, we have concluded that the device is a grenade. A tragic incident has occurred due to the explosion of an insurgency-era grenade.”

The home minister noted that the incident came days after the political parties resolved disputes over peace process-related issues and amended the law governing the transitional justice process. “It shows that conflict-era issues are still alive in our country. People are still losing lives in bomb explosions,” he said.

According to him, another bomb was found hidden in a shrub in the same area and a Nepal Army team later disposed it.

The National Human Rights Commission has said it could be an explosive left negligently by one of the warring sides of the time. The constitutional body said that it was unfortunate that such incidents occurred 18 years after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Accord in 2006 even as the political forces agreed to clear the remnants of the explosives within two months.

Point 5.1.4 of the Accord states that “both sides shall assist each other to mark landmines and booby-traps used during the time of armed conflict by providing necessary information within 30 days and defuse and excavate them within 60 days.”

The commission has demanded compensation for the bereaved families and the injured persons.

“The commission directs the government to diffuse such explosives left negligently in the past and prevent such incidents in future,” the rights body said in a statement issued on Friday.