Warning: Some readers may find pictures in the article disturbing.
The aunt of Suhail Ahmad, 18, sheds silent tears when her thumb and index finger pull apart the bruised lids of his left eye. Her hand shivers to touch the scary, bluish-red skin dotted by tiny red pockmarks from the impact of pellets.
“Most of the pellets were removed by doctors yesterday but two are still lodged in his skull,” Khatija, Suhail’s aunt, told The Quint at Ward No 7 of SMHS hospital in Srinagar.
Suhail, she said, went through one surgery in the badly damaged eye last night.
“Doctors told us it will require another surgery to find out if at all he can see with his eye again,” she said, sobbing in silence.
On Saturday, 29 August, Suhail, a class 12 student, was one of the nearly 200 mourners who had taken out a procession on the ninth day of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar, near Khomeni Chowk on the outskirts of Srinagar.
‘Felt As If Hit By a Rain of Hot Peas’
The procession was part of the annual mourning across the Muslim community to commemorate the martyrdom of Hussain ibn Ali, Prophet Mohammad’s grandson, along with family and companions, by the army of Yazid on 10 Muharram, 608 AD.
“When we took out the procession, they (police) surrounded us and, without any provocation, fired teargas shells and pellets. I felt as if I was hit by a rain of hot peas. Pellets had pierced my chest and eyes and I started bleeding,” said Suhail, the only son of his parents, unable to open the injured eye on his own.
According to reports, at least three dozen mourners were injured when sleuths of Jammu and Kashmir police fired pellets and teargas shells to disperse a procession of nearly three hundred people in Srinagar’s Bemina locality flanking the Jammu-Srinagar highway.
Six With Pellet Injuries Brought to Hospital: Doc
Dr Nazir Chaudhary, the medical superintendent of SMHS hospital, said that six persons with pellet injuries were brought to his hospital on Saturday evening. He said that the condition of the injured is stable.
“Two of them have serious injuries in the eyes and they will have to undergo specialised treatment.”Dr Nazir Chaudhary, the medical superintendent of SMHS hospital to The Quint.
Senior Superintendent of Srinagar police Haseeb Mughal told media that there are restrictions on public gatherings in Srinagar to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.
“These mourners defied the restrictions and also pelted stones at cops. Mild force was used to disperse them,” Mughal said.
Police sources said the mourners tried to take out the procession on the highway “due to which security forces swung into action to prevent any disruption to the vehicular traffic.”
Local sources said that the injured were initially taken to Imam Hussain Hospital where they were administered first aid and later rushed to SMHS and other hospitals of the city for specialised treatment.
Injured Fear Arrest, Didn’t Go to Hospital
Another seriously wounded pellet victim is admitted at Srinagar’s SKIMS hospital. Dr Farooq Jan, medical superintendent of SKIMS didn’t respond to phone calls.
“Many injured persons didn’t come to the hospital out of the fear of getting arrested by the police,” a relative of one of the victims at the SHMS hospital said, requesting anonymity.
Indeed, there are dozens of police personnel in the corridors of the tertiary care hospital which is the last hope in Kashmir for thousands of patients who can’t afford private treatment.
“This is tyranny. What was the crime of this young boy that they took out his eye?” his father Shabir Ahmad said. The family lives in Mirgund village of central Kashmir’s Budgam district.
‘Injured Hit By Nearly 100 Pellets’: Docs Told Kin
On the other side of the Ward No 7 at SHMS hospital, Nazir Ahmad, 49, tries to feed a spoonful of egg yolk to his son, Tanveer Hussain, 16, whose swollen face is pockmarked by pellets.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced Tanveer, a class 9 student at a school in Uttar Pradesh’s Aligarh, to return home in April this year. Now, writhing in pain on the SMHS hospital bed, he holds his hand over the left side of his face while his mouth refuses the egg yolk.
“Doctors told us he has been hit by nearly hundred pellets. Some of them were removed but many more are still lodged in his skull,” Nazir Ahmad, a private employee, said.
Tanveer, whose both eyes have been damaged by pellets, doesn’t talk. The injuries on his face and body have turned him numb. His father, who works at a car showroom, said, “Due to the volatility here, I sent him to study in Aligarh for his safety. I didn’t know he was going to meet this fate.”
Spitting streaks of blood into a tissue paper, Suhail, the other pellet victim, said that the policemen allowed the mourners on Saturday to take out the procession.
“We thought they would streamline the traffic for the procession when they got down from their vehicles. Instead they pointed their guns at us and fired teargas shells and pellets.”Suhail Ahmad, class 12 student
“It (blood spitting) hasn’t ended since yesterday. He will undergo second surgery next week. I can only hope that he is able to see with his injured eye again,” his aunt Khatija said.
“Whatever had to happen, has happened. I don’t want to talk about it,” Suhail said in an angry voice.
“Even women and children were not spared,” Khatija, his aunt, added, pouring two drops of medicine into Suhail’s injured and seemingly lifeless eye.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)