ZEHRU NISSA
Srinagar, Publish Date: Sep 4 2016 1:00AM | Updated Date: Sep 4 2016 1:00AM
4-yr-old Barena, brother Zaffar fresh pellet victims
GK Photo
Unable to overcome the shock of pellet injuries in their eyes, little Barena and her brother Zaffar lying on bed at SMHS Hospital’s Ward 8 cry in pain and want their father to hold them in his lap.
Four-year-old Barena is recovering from anesthesia after she was operated upon in her left eye while her brother Zaffar, who is eight year old, was also hit by pellets.
Shocked kids have turned mute but tug on the shirt of their father Muhammad Rafiq who was driving them on scooty Friday evening when security forces fired pellets on them at Nowshera Srinagar.
“I left my residence late in the evening on my scooty along with my two children. I was looking for some petrol. Forces fired pellets at us when we reached Nowshera chowk,” Rafiq said.
“They just fired at us,” he added.
Doctors said Barena has been lucky as pellets have not hit the iris of her eye. “She has been hit in the sclera (white portion of the eye) and her iris is safe,” doctors said.
Traumatized Zaffar has injuries on chest and abdomen. Rafiq said even after the injuries his brave kids asked him to immediately rush them to hospital which he did.
Barena and Zaffar are recuperating adjacent to a 60-year old man and 48 other pellet victims who have been admitted to SMHS Hospital from Friday morning to Saturday morning amid talks of ‘phasing out pellet guns’ and resorting to pellet fire only on ‘rare occasions.’
As per hospital records, over 300 people with pellet injuries have been admitted in Srinagar hospitals in the past five days.
240 people with pellet injuries have been admitted in SMHS Hospital in past five days, since August 29. Of these, 88 had eye injuries inflicted by pellets. In SKIMS Medical College Hospital Bemina, 92 people with pellet injuries were admitted in the past five days.
In the past two days, over 50 pellet victims were admitted at SMHS Hospital each day.
The total number of injured with pellet shots in eyes or other parts of body admitted at SMHS Hospital alone has crossed 1500.
Records from two Srinagar hospitals state that 772 people have been hit by pellets in one or both eyes in the past 55 days, injuries that are resulting in visual impairment.
In Neurosurgery Ward of the hospital, Abdul Ahad Dar, a 60 year old farmer from Goripora Achabal is being monitored. He has been operated upon in his brain. Doctors said his condition was being monitored and it continued to be critical but stable.
Dar’s clothes are soaked in blood. He has injuries right over his head, face, chest and arms. “He has pellets in the orbit and frontal lobe of his skull. He has pellets in pericardium (heart sac). He has pellets in lungs,” doctors said as they examined his CT Scan reports.
“He has multiple brain contusions (hemorrhages, bruises in brain) in addition to contusions in his lungs,” doctors said.
Doctors add that Dar also seemed to have lost his right eye. “It is bulging out,” they said.
An attendant who identified himself as Naseer Ahmed, a nephew of Dar, said his uncle had been fired upon when he was feeding the cattle Saturday morning at his native village. “An ijtima was going to take place in our village but the incident took place much before it was scheduled,” he said.
“He was going to his cowshed to feed the cattle when a forces’ patrol party fired at him,” he said. “Look at him. He is a poor man who worked hard to feed his family of seven children,” the man broke down.
Semi-conscious Dar screams, is agitated. Doctors sedate him. “We are observing him,” they said.
Pellet-hit continued to pour in at the hospitals on Saturday as doctors prepared for one more evening of huge rush of the injured in Trauma Theatre of the SMHS hospital.
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