Last week, even as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said she was "shocked" by the excessive force used by the security forces against protestors and would report human rights violations to the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the office of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was bombarded with queries about possible UN action.

Annan's spokesman Stephane Dujarric faced a volley of questions from journalists at the UN office in New York Thursday, asking if the international agency was monitoring the behaviour of Nepal's security forces.

Dujarric was asked if the UN was concerned about the inclusion of Nepali soldiers in UN peacekeeping missions when they were "beating up their own people".

"Does it not undermine the image that UN peacekeeping is meant to portray when you basically deploy troops with (a record of) human rights atrocities behind them?" the spokesman was asked.

Initially seen as trying to avoid a categorical answer, the spokesman was eventually pinned down into conceding that if security forces in Nepal were found violating human rights, it would be "brought up with the Peacekeeping Operation and followed up on".

This year, after King Gyanendra completed a year of absolute rule, the clamour by rights groups for dropping Nepal from UN peacekeeping operations - a matter of intense prestige and money for the kingdom - has been rising.

Amnesty International is campaigning for excluding soldiers and policemen accused of rights violations, freezing the foreign bank accounts and assets of the royal family and senior officials and stopping the issuance of visas to them.

The call was recently echoed by Nina Gill, European Parliament delegation chief for SAARC and South Asia, who said her organisation would lobby the UN for dropping Nepali security forces from peacekeeping missions around the world.

Nepal is among 10 countries contributing the most troops for UN peacekeeping missions around the world.