Tough questions on future await those blinded by pellets

Eyes draped in cotton and gauze, 26-year-old Parvaiz Ahmed sat stunned to hear that his right eye was removed and the left one could possibly survive.

A labourer, Parvaiz was hit on the face by the pellets fired by the security forces near his hometown of Kralpora in north Kashmir’s Kupwara. He was brought to SMHS hospital here for a surgery.

Mir, another labourer, was not so lucky. “This would change my life forever,” he said in a tear-choked voice, as he learnt of his blindness. “How will I work and feed my family?”

The last time Mir could see, he was staring into the firing end of the pellet gun the troopers were pointing at him. Before he could react, a series of pellets shredded his face and rendered him unconscious.

“Think of the boy there, who also lost his eyesight,” one of the attendants at Ward 8 told to console Mir. “How can I see?” Mir whispered, leaving everyone gathered in tears.

At least a dozen patients in the ward face the dreadful possibility of blindness as a result of the pellet injuries.

Aamir, a Class VII student from Palhalan Pattan in Baramulla, was in his garden when police and paratroopers entered his village and began unprovoked pellet and teargas firing. The force of the pellets tearing his flesh felt like electric shock, he said.

“They wanted to trap us,” said a woman. “One of the girls in the village wanted to stop the advancing troopers and was hit on her leg by the tear gas shell.” Witnesses added that the girl got 20 stiches on the cut she suffered in her leg.

Watching us talk to Amir, Abnu Muzzain, a Class V student, interrupted us with his gentle chiding. “You press people come here to hear our troubles. You never publish them,”  said Abnu.

Kulsum is one of the orderlies in the ward who treated dozens in her hometown before arriving in Srinagar.

“My mother had three pellets on her shoulder, which I removed using needles because I feared bringing her to Srinagar would be difficult,” the college girl said.