She might be the youngest victim of pellet gun firing in the valley. The number of disabilities in the valley rose by 74% under the BJP-PDP rule.
Image Courtesy: Indian Express
Shopian: 20-month-old baby Hiba Nisar had just woken up to the sound of gunfire when security forces fired pellet guns at her family at their home in Kaprin – Batgund area of Shopian district in Jammu & Kashmir. A pellet hit her right eye. She underwent an immediate surgery but the doctors fear that she may lose her eyesight.
“Clashes broke out between civilians and security personnel in Shopian following an early morning encounter on Sunday. According to reports, a civilian was killed and over 50 people were injured in the protests that led to Hiba’s injury,” a report said.
Hiba’s mother Masarat Jan, also called Marsala Jan in other news reports, said that she was with her two children when pellet guns were fired at her. “Masarat said due to continuous teargas shelling, smoke started filling their house and Hiba refused to eat anything, coughing aggressively. “I couldn’t tolerate my daughter choking and nauseating with tear-smoke and decided to take her and my five-year-old son away from the house, somewhere where they could breathe better,” recalled Masarat, as tears rolled down her eyes. “As soon as I opened the door of my house, I saw a pellet gun aimed at us while youth were rushing away from the spot. I pushed my son to a side and shielded my daughter’s face with my hand,” Masarat said. “Three pellets hit my hand suddenly, but one hit my daughter in her eye,” she said in a report by Greater Kashmir.
“Hiba was brought to the hospital by her neighbours when Masarat fell unconscious after seeing blood oozing from her daughter’s eye. “I wish the pellet in her eye had hit me,” Masarat cried loudly, alongside her husband Nazir Ahmed, who was away for work when the tragedy befell the family,” the report said.
“She has a corneal perforation and its prognosis is not very good,” said the doctor, who had operated upon her at the trauma theatre. He explained that a pellet has made a hole right in the middle of her eyeball, causing bleeding in the eye and damaging its parts that are vital for vision,” Indian Express reported.
It was also noted that Hiba might be the youngest victim of pellet gun firing in the valley.
Insha Mushtaq was hit by pellets on the evening of July 11, 2016, when she opened a window to look outside her home in Sedow village of south Kashmir’s Shopian district. She lost her eyesight and was lauded when she completed her 10th class exams in January.
Most of this year’s military operations have taken place in Shopian.
74% rise in disability during BJP-PDP rule
In three years to 2017–when the coalition government of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was in power in Jammu & Kashmir–31,085 people were certified as disabled in the 10 districts in Kashmir valley, up 74% from 17,898 people in the three preceding years, data obtained through right to information requests show.
In six years to 2017, Kupwara district registered the most people with disabilities (10,825), followed by Anantnag (8,638), Baramulla (7,274) and Pulwama (5,461).
As of 2014, more than 100,000 disabilities were due to conflict, according to a November 2015 study published in the Journal of Business Management and Social Sciences Research (JBM & SSR). Post 2016, the use of pellet guns has increased the number of disabilities, according to Srinagar-based human rights activist Khurram Parvez.
Since 2016, 1,314 eyes of 1,253 people were impaired after being hit by pellets, and the chances of recovery are poor, Greater Kashmir, a local daily, reported on April 8, 2018. Blindness accounted for 68.9% of disabilities in the state compared to 44.5% nationwide, according to the JBM & SSR study quoted above.
Amnesty International India called for a ‘complete ban’ on the use of pellet guns in Kashmir in their report titled “Losing Sight in Kashmir: The Impact of Pellet-Firing Shotguns” which was released in 2017. The report depicts the plight of 88 victims of pellet guns in Kashmir whose eyesight was damaged in one or both eyes by metal pellets fired from pump-action shotguns used by the Jammu and Kashmir Police (JKP) and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) between the year 2014 and 2017.
The report says pellet-firing shotguns, which have been responsible for blinding, killing and traumatizing hundreds of people in Kashmir, “must be immediately banned.” The pump-action shotguns, as per the report, have been used by forces in Jammu and Kashmir since at least 2010. The report says the use of shotguns in Kashmir has “blinded hundreds and killed at least 14 people since July 2016.
The report had also noted that many school and university students who had been hit in the eyes continue to have learning difficulties.
More than 200 people hit by pellets fired by security forces during street protests in 2016 lost their vision either permanently or partially.
The unrest began on July 8, 2016, when Hizbul commander Burhan Wani was killed by the security forces in Anantnag district.
28-year-old Mohammed Ashraf Wani, a resident of Rahmoo village in Pulwama district of North Kashmir registered a not for profit trust “Pellet Victims Welfare Trust” in 2016 in Srinagar which has approximately 1,250 pellet and bullet victims as its members.
“Most of their families had to sell their land, houses and in some cases even jewellery to fund the treatment of pellet injuries. Now they are almost bankrupt with no money left for the continuous treatment,” he said.
He further said that the government has left them at the mercy of God after crippling them.
Union Ministry procured more pellet guns
The Union Home Ministry’s authorised Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) to procure additional 5000 pellet guns with six lakh cartridges in 2017, to be used on Kashmiri protesters.
“I don’t think the weaponisation can control the situation in Kashmir, it will only aggravate it,” human rights defender and coordinator of Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, Khurram Parvez, told Firstpost.
According to a report, after the Home Ministry’s authorisation for 4,949 pellet guns for CRPF, their total number will rise to 5,589 which will be powered by 6 lakh cartridges. Every CRPF company will be equipped with nine pellet guns.
“I don’t understand the logic behind the idea of increasing the number of pellet guns in Kashmir when the use of this so-called non-lethal weapon has already backfired. Is India preparing to blind another generation of Kashmiris?” a political science professor at Kashmir University, who wished not to be named, told Firstpost.
“The Government of India should shun the policy of meeting Kashmiri protestors with weapons. It is a failed policy. It seems that the policy corridors in Delhi are facing intellectual bankruptcy when it comes to think about Kashmir,” the professor said.
“The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir has banned the use of pellet guns in Valley last year. But both the Union and State Government dishonored the Court decision and went ahead with the use of pellets on protesters during the 2016 anti-India protests in Valley. According to the protocol, the pellet guns or any other crowd control weapons should be aimed at the legs of the protesters to make them less lethal. However, the number of injuries caused by pellets last year in Kashmir only suggest that they were aimed above the waist height, to damage vital parts of the body including head,” the report said.