Kathmandu: Nepal’s new government must investigate claims of police brutality and extrajudicial killings during protests against a new constitution that left at least 45 people dead, Human Rights Watch said on Friday.

The new charter was adopted last month despite weeks of violent protests in Nepal’s south and west, home to the Madhesi and Tharu ethnic minorities, who say it leaves them marginalised from power.

In a new report, HRW said it had found evidence of serious human rights violations after the government deployed troops to contain the violence, including extrajudicial killings and arbitrary beatings.

‘Nepal’s new leadership should take immediate steps to stem the tide of abuse that has overtaken Nepal the last few months,’ Brad Adams, Asia director at HRW, said in a statement.

‘The government needs to order investigations, and publicly call on all security forces to desist from any excessive use of force.’

The HRW report also documents the deaths of nine police officers, eight of whom were killed when protesters attacked a group of unarmed officers.

It quotes witnesses as saying security forces fired on protestors without warning, raided homes and used racial slurs.

Adams urged the new government of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, who was sworn in on Monday, to ‘stem the tide of abuse’ and publicly call on the security forces to desist from excessive use of force.

Nepal’s Madhesi minority dominates the southern plains, home to around half the country’s population, and have long complained of being treated like second-class citizens in their country.

Many were denied citizenship until the introduction of a 2006 law that sought to end discrimination against non-Nepali speakers born and raised in the country.

They say the federal structure laid out in Nepal’s new constitution, adopted on 20 September, will leave them under-represented in parliament.

Although the violence has abated in recent weeks, the protesters are still blockading a vital border checkpoint, cutting off fuel supplies from sole provider India and sparking a nationwide shortage.