The report is likely to put security forces, including local police, in the dock as doctors at SMHS had maintained that the nature of injuries imply the police action was not meant to control the mobs but to target them.
A four-year-old from Srinagar has become the youngest victim of pellet firing by security forces during the quelling of protests that have hit the Valley following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani.
The detail is part of an internal report compiled by doctors of Srinagar's Shri Maharaja Hari Singh (SMHS) hospital which has stated that close to 90 per cent of those injured in pellet firing over a period of two weeks in Kashmir have suffered maximum injury in areas above the waist.
The report is likely to put security forces, including local police, in the dock as doctors at SMHS had maintained that the nature of injuries imply the police action was not meant to control the mobs but to target them.
The report, accessed by dna, is compiled by doctors of the emergency department, which alone has received more than 400 patients for treatment. Out of the 400, a total of 171, were admitted to the ophthalmology department of SMHS. According to the statistics offered in the report a staggering 149 patients have received injuries above their waist including in their eyes, face, chest, shoulder, neck, head and tongue.
The report further states that out of the 171 admissions a total of 137 were operated upon. While the number of patients with loss of sight in one eye is 10, three have loss of sight in both eyes. The doctors have further suggested that an intervention is required for 130 patients out of which 60 had 'bad prognosis'. While the bulk of patients admitted to SMHS alone are aged between 18-25, 46 are 17 years and under. The youngest patient in SMHS is a four-year-old girl who has received injuries during "a stampede caused due lathi charge", while the oldest patient is a 75-year-old.
According to a doctor at SMHS, the nature of injuries this time around is grimmer that what he had seen since 2010. "Earlier pellets were larger in size and would pierce through the skin and would stop at 3mm. The new pellets are very small and are built to penetrate deeper than this causing more medical complications," the doctors said adding that at least three patients have had their eyes removed completely due to pellet injuries.
Another senior doctor at SMHS told dna that among the other issues that are likely to surface after initial treatment is the trauma that patients face in their day-to-day lives. "The pellets are small but they are enough to ruin a persons life. A pellet victim is a living memory of how brutal things can get in the Valley," said the doctor.
Aala Fazli, a research scholar at Kashmir University and a volunteer at SMHS, told dna that victims require a support system once they are released from hospital. "The other day I saw a patient waking up to realise that he had lost vision in one eye. The patient panicked and began to cry for help and though his family helped him, he was inconsolable. It was only mitigated when other pellet victims, who had lost their eyes, came to him and hugged him. They told him everything would be fine. But will it really be fine?" Fazli remarked.
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