KATHMANDU, Nepal - The police crackdown on loan shark victims in Maitighar Mandala has continued. Police have detained as many as 30 protestors.

The victims marched from Kirtipur to Maitighar on the 42nd day of their protest. The police intervened in the march in Balkhu, preventing the protestors from proceeding to Maitighar. Half of them, however, made it to the protest site.

Since Sunday, the police have been deployed to prevent protestors from coming to Maitighar for sit-in protests seeking justice for financial crimes committed against them by several loan sharks.

The poor were forced to borrow from moneylenders, who charged exorbitant interest rates and confiscated defaulters' property, in addition to physical torture and humiliation.