New Delhi-based English newspaper Hindustan Times quoted Kashmir’s heath administrator, Saleem Ur Rehman, saying about 50 ambulances were damaged as they ferried injured people to hospitals.
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The rate of eye injuries was unprecedented.
Fearing large-scale protests after Friday prayers, authorities had warned that nobody except medics and ambulances could be allowed to move on the streets, but government forces at scores of places fired tear gas, pellet shotguns and live bullets at hundreds of demonstrators who defied the curfew, a senior police officer said requesting anonymity.
Hospitals in the main city of Srinagar have struggled to cope with the rush of wounded, hundreds of them with severe injuries in their eyes. His parents don’t know that he lost the eyesight as they couldn’t be contacted due to the snapping of cellphone services in South Kashmir including Anantang. Our operation theaters are working 24 hours. Over 150 youths have been injured by pellets and are being treated in SMHS. “They are going to walk out of the hospital as one-eyed boys”, the doctor added. “I can’t see anything right now”, the boy said, declining to give his name as he wiped away tears that were dripping out of the sides of his bandaged eyes.
In occupied Kashmir, pro-freedom leaders and organizations have condemned the use of pellet guns on peaceful and unarmed Kashmiri protesters and termed it violation of the UN Charter. Hassan said that the pellet remains a lethal weapon and the strikes on the vital body parts including eyes and head leaves people disabled and even claims lives.
Hospital accounts suggest that most of the wounded are young men and many children also were being operated on. Each pellet cartridge contains 500 tiny iron balls. Two people died in hospital from injuries they had sustained earlier, raising the toll to 32.
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Blood smeared on its floor and walls, ward 7, 8 and 16 of SMHS hospital in Srinagar, packed with the injured civilians, reflect, what is happening across Kashmir in wake of the killing of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen commander, Burhan Wani, shot in an encounter last week. In the latest tensions, the youngest victim was a four-year-old girl. On Sunday and Monday, security forces reportedly fired tear-gas shells inside the SMHS hospital. The Bar, the spokesman feels, that the matter deserves a relook and a reconsideration thereof more particularly in the context of the recent judgment of the Supreme Court which has directed that the Security Personnel can not use excessive force in the garb of Armed Forces Special Powers Act, so that the use of pellet guns which has played havoc with the lives of the people, is ordered to be stopped forever.
