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Srinagar hospital reports at least 100 eye surgeries after four days of violent crackdown on protesters.

Srinagar, India-administered Kashmir – Despite appeals by rights groups to stop the practice, Indian armed forces have continued to use pellet guns to quell protesters, injuring at least 100 people in the recent violence that broke out in Indiand-administered Kashmir.

Inside the capital Srinagar’s Shri Maharaja Hari Singh hospital, doctors said that they had performed 100 eye surgeries in the past four days.

First introduced to Kashmir by duck-hunting British expeditions, pellet guns send in one shot nearly 600 high velocity ball bearings made of lead.

In Kashmir, pellet guns have been used to quell protests for a long time.

Police say it is a non-lethal weapon that helps breaking protests without casualty, but rights groups reject the assertion, saying it blinds people and must be banned.

In the latest tensions, the youngest victim was a four-year-old girl.

Fearing profiling and reprisals of injured youths by police, hospital officials have assigned serial numbers to pellet gun victims to hide their identity. This development came after it emerged that undercover police officers have been roaming in hospitals hunting for injured protesters.

“I was out to get medicine for my mother when a group of soldiers appeared suddenly and fired on me. There were no protests at that time,” an 18-year-old student of Budgam district said.

Nine-year-old Tamana Ashraf of Ganderbal district is another victim being treated at the Srinagar hospital.

She was sitting at the window in her house when pellets whizzed by, hitting her left eye, her mother Shamima said.

“I saw a small iron ball in her eye. When we tried to hospitalise her, police stopped us and beat us up. I was crying to see what they had done to my daughter. Luckily we managed to reach here,” she said.

Srinagar hospital reports at least 100 eye surgeries after four days of violent crackdown on protesters.

Despite appeals by rights groups to stop the practice, Indian armed forces have continued to use pellet guns to quell protesters, injuring at least 100 people in the recent violence that broke out in Indiand-administered Kashmir.

First introduced to Kashmir by duck-hunting British expeditions, pellet guns send in one shot nearly 600 high velocity ball bearings made of lead.

In Kashmir, pellet guns have been used to quell protests for a long time.

Police say it is a non-lethal weapon that helps breaking protests without casualty, but rights groups reject the assertion, saying it blinds people and must be banned.

Fearing profiling and reprisals of injured youths by police, hospital officials have assigned serial numbers to pellet gun victims to hide their identity. This development came after it emerged that undercover police officers have been roaming in hospitals hunting for injured protesters.

“I saw a small iron ball in her eye. When we tried to hospitalise her, police stopped us and beat us up. I was crying to see what they had done to my daughter. Luckily we managed to reach here,” she said.

Hospitals in Kashmir’s summer capital are packed to capacity these days, their wards overflowing with pellet gun victims injured during violent clashes with government forces.

Sixteen-year-old Kaisar Ahmad Mir has been in hospital since July 9. As X-ray films dangle near his bed, Kaisar stares with haggard eyes at each passerby. Doctors had to amputate three fingers on his right hand after pellets were fired at him from close range during one of the demonstrations. “After the autopsy was done, there were 360 pellets found in [my brother’s] body.”
“I felt some electric current when the pellets hit my right hand. Then the blood started oozing out, followed by intense pain,” Mir said.

Deadly clashes between protestors and government forces engulfed this Himalayan region – India’s only Muslim majority state – on July 8, a day when the army gunned down militant leader Burhan Wani during a three-hour gun battle in the remote south Kashmir region of the state.

The government quickly instituted a curfew across the Kashmir valley, severing internet and phone service. But people defied government restrictions and came out in hordes to protest in cities, towns and remote hamlets of the state. Since July 8, 52 protesters have been killed and more than 2,500 injured, around 600 of them due to pellets. Many of the victims are children.

Aaqib Mir, Kaisar Mir’s younger brother, said that Kaisar was preparing for his class 10 exams this year. “My brother is now crippled for life,” Aaqib said. Eleven-year-old Umer Nazir received more than 12 pellets in his face that damaged his both eyes. He was shot during anti-government protests in the Indian state of Kashmir.

Eleven-year-old Umar Nazir received more than 12 pellets in his face that damaged his both eyes. He was shot during anti-government protests in the Indian state of Kashmir.

The pellets are loaded with lead and once fired they disperse widely and in huge numbers. Pellets penetrate the skin and soft tissues, with eyes especially vulnerable to severe, irreversible damage.

Pellets were introduced in Kashmir as a “non-lethal” alternative to bullets after security forces killed nearly 200 people during demonstrations against Indian rule from 2008 to 2010.The state government’s reasoning was that when fired from a distance, shotgun pellets disperse and inflict only minor injuries.

During this summer’s protests, pellets were extensively used against the protesters, injuring hundreds. According to figures issued by Kashmir’s SHMS hospital, out of 164 cases of severe pellet injuries, 106 surgeries were performed in which five people lost one eye completely.

Riyaz Ahmad Shah, 21, was killed on Aug. 2 after being hit by pellets. An ATM security guard, Shah was returning home when, according to his family, state forces fired pellets at him from close range, killing him on the spot.

“After the autopsy was done, there were 360 pellets found in his body,” said Shakeel Ahmad, Riyaz Shah’s brother.

At least nine people have been killed in the region since pellet guns were introduced in 2010.

“Pellets are not being used against rioters in other parts of the country, but here in Kashmir they are being used quite openly without any remorse from the government,” said human rights activist Khurram Parvez, who is also a program coordinator of the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society.

To protest against the use of pellets, the coalition has created posters with text written in braille to make the world aware of the suffering in Kashmir. “When you don’t see eye to eye with the brutal occupation in Kashmir, this is how they make you see their point,” reads a campaign poster.