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Search for missing 'Buddha' mounted in Nepal+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)KATHMANDU, March 11_(Kyodo) _ A search has been mounted for a Nepalese youth who disappeared Saturday morning from a forest in south Nepal where he had been meditating for the past the last 11 months, a government official said. Ram Bahadur Bomjon, 16, said to be in meditation without taking food or water since May last year, drew widespread attention as the new Buddha incarnate. "He left his meditation site at around 3 a.m. Saturday and a search for him is under way," Hari Krishna Khatiwada, a government official in the Bara district about 200 kilometers from Kathmandu, said by telephone. A local television station reported his disappearance Saturday noon, but said it was not known if he had quit meditating or someone had forcibly taken him away. Local media reports Saturday evening quoted devotees of the "Buddha" in Ratanpuri village where he was meditating as saying that crowds of people thronging the site had driven him away to look for a new place. |