SRINAGAR: “The use of pellets by the security personnel while dealing with the protesters is adversely affecting peoples health. People are being killed and injured by the pellet guns,” said Mehbooba Mufti, then just the President of the Peoples Democratic Party, in a debate in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly on the deadly consequences of these guns being supplied in large numbers to the forces. The PDP registered its protest by walking out of the Assembly against the use of pellet guns and chilli grenades.
Today Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has allowed the same guns to be used without restraint on the young protesting youth of Kashmir, with nearly 100 at the last count having lost their eyesight. And more eye surgeries still scheduled in the hospitals running out of human and medical resources. In fact early incidents of the use of these guns were recorded soon after the PDP came into power, with amongst the first deaths of 2015 being of 16 year old Hamid Ahmad who was shot at by the forces directly on the face, with over a 100 pellets lodged in his skull.
The pellet guns were brought on to the streets of Kashmir under the National Conference-Congress government in 2010 when Kashmir was burning over the death of 126 youth in police firing. The first use was recorded on August 14, 2010 against a mob of protesters at Seelo Sopore but no one was killed. Many, however were injured.
A pellet cartridge holds around 400-500 tiny iron balls and a single shot fired into a body explodes into innumerable pellets. If these hit a vital organ the person dies, and youth today have also reported that when the pellets hit their faces felt as if their head was exploding, and fainted. The pellets guns introduced a new element to the human rights dimension as the pellets fired Pasdirectly into the faces of the young stone pelters resulted in blindness, with youth till today suffering from related disabilities.
The use of these guns in quelling the current protests has been indiscriminate with sections of the media recording the agony and uncertainty facing the hundreds of injured lying in the overcrowded hospitals. Eye surgeries have left many with little hope, as the pellets are difficult to remove, and many remain lodged in the body.
Past incidents recorded by Kashmiri journalists and writers show that the youth who survive remain in pain, and need constant medical attention. Also the maximum injuries have been to the eyes and the face, more so this time, proof that the men in uniform are following a deliberate strategy to shoot at the face with these deadly guns.Several of those so injured in the past have been found to be from the poorer families, without the money for the long medical treatment required by the young boys.
Fear of arrest is another major issue and many young people do not go to hospital for treatment, despite the agony.
This time, Kashmiri journalists said, the use of these guns under Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has been widespread and indiscriminate. The pellets that the doctors often have no choice but to leave in the body despite long hours of surgery, cause infections later leading to life threatening ailment again.
This time around over 80 per cent of the injured are under 25 years of age.Nearly a 100 surgeries have been carried out. Pellets decrease the body count in terms of numbers, but the injuries as doctors and relatives of the patients crowding the hospitals ---two to a bed---point out completely finish the lives of these young people. Those not blinded, will spend the next years fighting infection and pain. Doctors said that almost every injured youth brought to hospital had been hit with pellets above the waist.This, incidentally, is standard operating procedure for dealing with young protesters in Kashmir.