"Doctors have referred him to the big hospitals in Kathmandu, but due to financial constraints we are unable to take him there," said his wife Yamuna. [break]
According to Sharma, he was taken under custody by the then Royal Nepal Army on December 19, 2001 on the grounds that he was a Maoist, and tortured. "I was blindfolded and beaten with an iron rod on the soles of my feet and on the head and legs, which caused this disabilily," he said.
After extreme torture, he was kept in police custody without any warrant for 77 days, during which his health deteriorated. Since then he has developed a limp and hearing impairment. "The torture is said to have affected his brain, and he has been bedridden since 2009," said Yamuna.
For the past four months Sharma has not been able to urinate and had to undergo urostomy. At home, he has at times to be given saline water.
A lawyer by profession, Sharma´s condition has left his family desperate. His daughter Pratikchhya, a grade 8 student, and son Pratik, a sixth grader, have been facing problems going to school and enjoying basic facilities. "We are helpless," said Yamuna.
Though the Asian Human Rights Commission had directed the Nepal government and the Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction to provide prompt treatment to those tortured, this directive is yet to be implemented.
Sharma informed that he was tortured under the leadership Chandra Bahadur Pun, who was then in the army. He filed a complaint against Pun in December last year, but police refused to register the complaint and delayed the process on the ground that it was a case against an army official.
Sharma finally filed a complaint against Pun with the help of Advocacy Forum Dhaulagiri on the ground that any form of torture is a criminal act under Nepali and international law.
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