200 visually-impaired detained in Gandhinagar

Gandhinagar police detained more than 200 visually-challenged persons near Pathik Ashram on Thursday afternoon while they were marching towards the assembly.

To make their demands and long-standing issues heard by the state government, around 400 visually-impaired persons from across the state had gathered near an open ground at Gh-3 circle on Thursdat. These included women and children from across the state, including Bhavnagar, Rajkot and Vadodara. They were invited by the Gujarat Netrahin Jagruti Sangh at Gandhinagar.

After the meeting in the morning, the participants decided to march towards the Assembly.

According to Labhubhai Sonani, president of the Sangh, they wanted to give a list of their demands to the chief minister. "We wanted the police to detain us, so we did not take permission for the gathering. When we started our rally, police detained us and took us to the police station. They released us after 4:30pm," said Sonani, who too was detained.

The demonstrators wanted the government to accept 18 of their demands, including free travel in express buses of GSRTC and inclusion of their disability as a criterion for issuance of BPL cards to them. "Apart from these, we want the government to look into the long-standing issue of making visually-impaired teachers permanent in their jobs, which has not been done in last 10 years" said Sonani.