KATHMANDU: A journalist and a protester were killed on Friday as thousands of people gathered in Kathmandu demanding the restoration of the monarchy, police said, with security forces using live fire to disperse the rally.

Police said officers fired rubber bullets and live rounds into the air, after using tear gas and water cannons against the crowds. Some demonstrators pelted stones at police, an agency photographer saw.

`A protester has died of a gunshot wound,` police spokesman Dinesh Kumar Acharya said. Acharya said that a journalist died after protesters set the building he was filming from on fire.

Thousands of demonstrators had gathered on Friday morning close to parliament, chanting that the king and country were `dearer to us than life`.

Support for the restoration of the mon-archy and re-enshrining Hinduism as the state religion has grown in tandem with popular dissatisfaction over political instability, corruption and lacklustre economic development.

During the rally several buildings and vehicles were vandalised, according to the Kathmandu Valley police station.

`Four police officers are also seriously wounded and are being treated,` said station spokesman Shekhar Khanal.

Twenty-three demonstrators were wounded and 17 were arrested, he said, while authorities imposed a curfew in the area.

The Himalayan nation adopted a federal and republican political system in 2008 after parliament abolished the monarchy, as part of a peace deal that ended a decade-long civil war responsible for more than 16,000 deaths.-AFP