Security forces found the bodies of 29 people – soldiers and suspected rebels - at the site of a fierce gun battle in western Nepal, the Defence Ministry said today, hours after five insurgents were reported killed in a bomb explosion.

Soldiers today continued to search for hundreds of students thought to have been taken hostage by communist rebels in a mountainous area of western Nepal, a day after rescuing some 600 children, officials said.

SOLDIERS yesterday said they had rescued about 600 students who were abducted from their classrooms in western Nepal in a series of strikes by communist rebels.