Kashmir turmoil: The 'non-lethal' weapon which maims and blinds people

Srinagar: Danish Ahmed Jhat, a 22-year-old youth from Srinagar’s Rainawani locality, was brought to the City’s government-run Sri Maharaj Hari Singh (SMHS) hospital on Sunday evening after a cartridge full of high velocity ball bearings made of lead fired from a police pellet gun pierced his eye.

He had suffered “grievous” injury and all the effort put in by Ophthalmologist surgeons to save his vision failed. “His one eye was already gone and the cartridge had pierced it in such a way that his second eye had also been badly affected. He has lost vision in both the eyes forever,” said a senior Ophthalmologist at the SMHS who has preserved the cartridge for any future scrutiny.

Danish who can barely talk due to pain and discomfort said, “The CRPF had just been withdrawn from the area and I like others getting very bored and frustrated after remaining indoors for days of curfew decided to go out for a quick evening walk,” he said.

Before returning home, he and some of his mohalla friends sat on the pavement of a closed shop for a chat. “Suddenly we saw a security force vehicle moving fast towards us. Some boys fled and disappeared in the alleyways. I heard a group of youth standing at a distance jeering at the security personnel. One of them took out his gun and opened fire. I was hit with something very hot and hard in the eye and when I regained consciousness I was laying here (on hospital bed),” he recalled. .

Pellet guns were first introduced to Kashmir by duck-hunting British expeditions and would often be referred to as ‘chara bandook’ in local jargon. In 2010, the Jammu and Kashmir police came up with a contemporary version of the weapon, presenting it as “non lethal” to quell the protesters who often take to the streets in Srinagar and elsewhere to vent their political feelings and frustration and habitually engage the men in khaki in stone-pelting.

The other “non lethal” weapons the J&K police and other central security forces already stationed in the Valley or moved in, in large numbers to contain widespread disturbances in the aftermath of the killing of Burhan Muzaffar Wani, the new-age poster boy of militancy, by security forces on July 8, are pepper sprays and taser guns.

As many as 44 protesters have been killed in the tough campaign being spearheaded by security forces to quell the unrest, most of them in firings. About 2,200 others have been injured and the doctors have termed the damage “colossal”.

Dr. Khurshid Aalam Wani, senior-most surgeon specialist and head of Department of Surgeries at Srinagar’s Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) said, “We couldn’t help much in the cases which came to us very late. But overall what we have seen is; people are being targeted to kill them. Most people had been hit either in their head or abdomen. They are not shooting them in their legs”.

He also said, “The damage is enormous. People have been inflicted by lethal weapons. Someone had lost his eyesight, someone his brain metaphor…we couldn’t help them. They died at the hospital casualty itself and some were brought dead. We also have a number of cases in which people have been absolutely incapacitated as they have suffered serious gunshot wounds to their internal organs and some of the penetrating injuries of the colon have been managed by us after diverting colostomy.”

But it is mainly the security forces’ using the pellet guns to maim and blind them that has come under severe criticism at home and abroad with human rights groups making fervent appeals for discontinue the use of this so-called “non-legal weapon”.

Srinagar’s SMHS hospital alone received 167 patients with eye injuries caused due to the use of pellet guns during past 11 days. Ophthalmologists have, so far, conducted 140 surgeries for such patients and 80 of them have been sent home.

“However, among the remaining badly injured patients are 13 of those who have lost their vision in one or both eyes. Unfortunately, we’re not any hopeful about some other cases as well”, said a senior Ophthalmologist at the SMHS who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Dr. Sudharshan Khokhar who was heading a 3-member team of Ophthalmologists and surgeon specialists rushed in from Delhi following a request was made to the Central government by Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti, last week had earlier said, “It is a war like situation here. We have never seen injuries on this scale”.

Pellets are made of metal and may or may not be covered by a 1 or 2 mm rubber coating to minimize impact. Both can maim and even kill if shot from close range and aimed at any vital organ or the skull.

Doctors who are attending on those hit in pellet firing across the Valley have said that both J&K police and the CRPF are using bare-metal pellets. Police sources said they are shot from a 12 bore gun armed with a cartridge that can carry as many as 600 pellets, slightly larger than a grain of sand in size, and sprayed out in every direction at high speeds of over 1,000 feet per second. Usually when fired it sprays and does not shoot pellets but in rare cases, such as Danish’s, a cartridge full of pellets pierced the bodies of the intended target or whoever came in the way.

Experts say that the pellet gun should be fired from, at least, a distance of 500 feet and aimed to shoot below the waist. Most patients admitted to SMHS and other Valley hospitals were shot both in rifle and pellet gun firings above their waist line; hence the increasing incidence of fatal injuries, say the doctors and local human rights groups.

There are scores of patients who lay on hospital beds with swollen and disfigured faces and other parts of body. Many have the tiny pieces of metal shrapnel –the pellets- pieced in head, chest and other parts of their bodies as can be seen in their X-ray images. Police officials insist that the rubber pellets are not fatal when fired by hydraulic pump action guns but do admit privately that they also have come across the cases wherein these caused blindness, disfigurement and damage to organs.