As 42-year-old Krishna Prasad Ghising marched with fellow friends with disabilities from Bhrikuti Mandap to Singha Durbar demanding disabled members in the new Constitution Assembly (CA), police kicked his senseless legs.

Paralysed from the waist down, Ghising was one of the ten people with disabilities who were harassed by the police on Wednesday, as the latter tried to break the protest march on the restricted area. The tussle between the police and the protesters left three wheelchairs damaged, one white cane broken and one artificial leg in need of repair.

Two deaf men, Kumar Regmi and Birodh Khatiwada, who looked ‘normal’ to the police received severe thrashing. So did Sumitra Verma, a mother representing her deaf-blind daughter and Dhruba Hari Neupane, visually-impaired treasurer of the National Federation of the Disabled-Nepal, the organisation leading the protest.

Verma and Neupane later left for Model Hospital at Bagbazaar, together with the owner of the artificial limb, Rama Dhakal. On the other side, a policeman received head injuries. “We are here to protest and the police are here to stop us. Fine, but lathicharge is not the way to break us. The police could have formed a human chain instead,” said Anita Ghimire, treasurer of Nepal Disabled Women Organisation.

Ghising, who injured his spinal cord when a bus he was travelling in hit a landmine in Dolakha during the civil war, called the police treatment ‘insulting’. “I lose my legs to a mindless war, the government ignores me. I demand a disabled parliamentarian who might listen to me, I get kicked around,” said Ghising.

Tika Devi Dahal, general secretary of the Federation, vows to continue the protest until the government ensures their political rights and appoints four disabled people in the new CA. The last CA had three lawmakers from the disabled community: Sharada Kumal from the CPN-UML, Indra Maya Gurung from the then CPN-Maoist and Raghav Bir Joshi from Nepal Communist Party (Samyukta).

The disabled community plans to organise a sit-in at Hanumanthan on Thurdsay, another at Baluwater on Friday and a march to Singhadurbar on Friday.