LAHORE: Police used batons to disperse a group of visually impaired persons who had gathered outside the Lahore Press Club on Wednesday to protest against what they said official disregard of the job quota for special persons and to raise voice for their rights.

After wide media coverage of the police action, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who is in Qatar, ordered an inquiry and IG (Operations) Dr Haider Ashraf suspended two ASIs and three constables.

Representatives of people with special needs accused police of beating up and manhandling the protesters to stop them from raising their demands on The International Day of Persons with Disabilities. A clash broke out when around 200 protesters tried to march towards the CM’s secretariat.

The protesters had assembled outside the Press Club at about 10am and held a demonstration. From there they started marching on Davis Road to hold a sit-in outside a newspaper office but policemen armed with batons and shields tried to disperse them.

When they refused to disperse, police started pushing them back. After ‘assurances’ given by a police officer that they would be allowed to go to the Club Chowk at the end of VVIP movements, they held a sit-in on Davis Road.

The protesters later reached the Muslim League House Chowk where they were again stopped and told they would not be allowed to move further because of VVIP movements.

General Secretary of the Pakistan Association of the Blind Aamir Ashraf told Dawn that the protesters were baton-charged and manhandled at two places on Davis Road and were allowed to reach the Club Chowk on The Mall only after the media started airing the police action.

According to him, a couple of protesters were knocked unconscious as a result of police beating. Their megaphone was taken away.

Mr Ashraf said he and some other government employees were not allowed to leave offices to join the protest.

He said the protesters later held another sit-in on The Mall and presented their three demands – implementation of two per cent job quota for special persons in all government and semi-government departments, increase of the quota from 2pc to 3pc and giving job contracts to all ad hoc employees of the Special Education Department.

Mr Ashraf said some government officials, acting on the directives of the Punjab chief minister, accepted their demands. After receiving assurances, the protesters dispersed peacefully in the evening.

Published in Dawn December 4th , 2014