A traffic policeman stopped me at Simal Chowk (Radhakrishna Chowk) on 3 August after I had arrived in Gularia on my way to collect information for a story I was writing on the Tarai Arc project. He objected to my license plate that said "Press" instead of the number. I said that I had displayed this sign all along and would change it. He raised the question of the legality of such an action. I said that security forces had been known to travel on the wrong side of the street, and also pointed out to him a motorcycle that had just passed with three riders, and asked why they had not been stopped. He replied that the passengers on the bike were from the army. I responded that nobody-the army, the police or the press-was above the law. He then asked me my name, and I told him. "Where are you going?" he asked. I said "ahead", and he let me go.

It was Friday, and past 3PM, so the forest office was already closed. At around 5PM I went to the Bijaya Guest House to meet a source. A plainclothes soldier came up to me and asked, "What is your name? Aren't you called Kamal Panthi?" He was using the least respectful tero form of address, not timi or tapai. "I have work with you, come outside," he said. I asked him, "Who are you? What work?" He said only that he had 'work' with me. Later I was able to get his name-Karna Bahadur Biswokarma.

About 100 m from there, when we reached Simal Chowk, he said, "You were the one asking about rules relating to people on security duty, weren't you? Who are you? Are you looking for trouble? Who are you to teach us? I was on an army action on the motorcycle and you were worried about a violation of traffic rules. I also live in Bardia, do you understand?"

The policeman at the chowk tried to end the quarrel by pulling me aside, but the soldier did not let that happen. The traffic policeman with whom I had had a discussion was watching quietly as two other policemen scolded me.

The army official said, "My family has been troubled by the Maoists; why are you not writing about that?" You think you are a journalist, don't you?" And then he threw my notebook and all the papers I had in my pockets. He pushed me again. I told him: "Don't get violent. Forgive me if I have made any mistake." He named Krishna Sen and said "now you face it too". Then he struck me in the eye. I cannot say what he hit me with, but I started bleeding and fell into a shop. The shopkeeper and locals tried to hold my head and stop the bleeding.

The bleeding did not stop, so they took me to the district hospital in a rickshaw. The doctor plucked pieces of glass from the wound and put three stitches above the eye. He said he could not stitch under my eye because the wound was deep.

Journalists organised a press conference on Saturday morning. The army official tried to come into the meeting, but he was stopped by other plainclothes soldiers. After we went to the district administration office seeking action against the soldier and wrote a report on the incident in the papers, he called my home and has started making threats. "I have only smashed his eye, if he does not take back the news, we'll kill him." After he started to say "tell us where your husband is; tell me or we will kill you too", my wife and other members of my family have been spending the night elsewhere.

[The Royal Nepal Army has said that it will investigate the matter.]