KATHMANDU: Chinese border police arrested four suspected Maoist rebels who tried to smuggle a sack of arms and explosives into Nepal, a Nepalese army official said on Tuesday.

The four suspects were arrested after Chinese forces at the Khasa border point, 114 kilometres northeast of Kathmandu, asked them to open their bag which they claimed contained only scrap metal, the official said.

The bag was full of arms and explosives apparently bought "from some local Tibetan traders," said the official, who did not know the exact quantity of weapons seized.

He identified two of the men as Hirala Lal Shrestha and Gyaljen Sherpa and said they were taken for interrogation in the Tibetan town of Xigatse. The arrests occurred either Monday or Tuesday.

It would be the first time Maoist rebels were caught smuggling weapons over Nepal’s 1,400-kilometre Himalayan border with Chinese-ruled Tibet. Officials believe the guerrillas regularly bring weapons over the lowland border with India. But police say the Maoists have used Chinese-made weapons in a number of attacks, including a revolver used to kill police chief Krishna Mohan Shrestha, his wife and their bodyguard in Kathmandu in January.

Beijing rejects any links to the insurgents, despite the rebels’ high esteem for communist China’s founder Mao Zedong. The rebels have been fighting since 1996 to overthrow the monarchy and establish a communist state in an insurgency that has claimed more than 8,200 lives.