The Kashmir issue is a 78 years old deep-rooted lingering dispute between India and Pakistan. The region has witnessed unbelievable turmoil and bloodshed since the partition of sub continent because of Indian arrogance and violation of basic principles of division of subcontinent that resulted in mass uprising in Kashmir and 3 conventional wars and a Kargil conflict between India and Pakistan.
Kashmiris have never accepted Indian illegal occupation and have always struggled against it but India used major portion of its budget to curb and muzzle every voice raised against its hegemony and forced occupation. Indian inhuman approach towards the innocent people of Kashmir added fuel to the recent freedom struggle of the people of occupied territory who are sacrificing their lives to get rid of Indian subjugation.
To continue her illegal rule and to subjugate the freedom loving Kashmiris, India has deployed more than one million security forces personnel, who use every kind of lethal weapon to play havoc with the life, honour and property of the hapless Kashmiris. Indian live ammunition could not stop the Kashmiris from demanding freedom rather resulted in the martyrdom of lakhs of Kashmiris. Although India has turned Kashmir into the open-air prison yet Kashmiris remain determined to carry on their pious struggle.
Losing at all fronts locally or internationally, politically or diplomatically and failing to suppress the freedom movement, India has decided to apply her sinister designs to blind the youth of Kashmir and have employed pellet-firing shotguns as a measure to control public procession against Indian State terrorism in Occupied territory.
Pelletized Kashmir is a heart-rending reality which has no precedent in the history of mankind, any where in the civilized World. Pellet guns symbolize and means Indian state oppression and repression on Kashmiris, in order to suppress the popular freedom struggle of the people of Kashmir.
It is pertinent to mention here that such a dreadful and lethal weapon has never been used to control demonstrations or protests but it was meant for hunting birds and wild animals. Unfortunately, the so-called and self declared largest democracy of the World is using this gun to terrify and maim the peaceful and unarmed protesters of Indian Occupied Kashmir.
The people of Kashmir who are demanding freedom from India and are protesting against the brutal subjugation, torture, terror and killings of their dear and near ones by the Indian ruthless troops, are dealt with pellet gunshots. The unfortunate and hapless victims of Indian state terrorism included young boys and girls, men and women of all ages and even the innocent children. The pellets fired on the innocent people of the Kashmir cause blindness, fractures, fatal injuries and the victims and their families have to suffer mental health issues, anxiety and economic instability. The occupation forces in Indian occupied Kashmir have been committing genocide of the ill-fated Kashmiris for the past eight decades.
Using all possible vicious methods to crush Kashmiris freedom struggle, use of deadly pellet guns is one among them. Even Israel, despite her ferocious attitude, has never used this weapon against the Palestinians. India itself has not used pellet guns to crush anti India movements in Assam, Manipur, Mizoram and elsewhere in India. These pellet guns are being extensively used with the sole aim to incapacitate the Kashmiris, especially the youth.
Over the years, hundreds of young boys and girls have lost their eyesight and mobility to pellets. The team of our Human Rights Organization Institute of Voice of Victims has collected data of dozens of pellet victims through various reliable sources. A few of them are reported here.
Danish Rajab, 24 years old, from Srinagar. His left eye was damaged, so doctors replaced it with an artificial eyeball. He still has 90 pellets inside his body and from his right eye he can barely see shadows.
Shabkal Nazir Waseem, 25 years old, from Bijbehera was fired at indiscriminately round about one hundred pellets all over his upper body at the occasion of Eid. Two pellets hit in each eye, leaving him almost totally blind.
Pellet victim, Insha Mushtaq, the teenager of south Kashmir cannot forget the evening of July 11, 2016, when peeping out of her window to look out at the protest was directly shot in the face and lost her eyes forever. The 14-year-old was hit by nearly 100 pellets. While talking to Al Jazeera television channel she says “I just peeped through the window and the policemen, who were outside, targeted me. I fell down and I don’t know what happened to me after that. Everything went dark,”
A young boy Shahid Ali was maimed when Indian forces fired volleys of iron pellets towards him and his friends, when they were coming out of a mosque after prayers. While narrating this tragic incident he said, “The last thing I saw was police firing bullets and pellets near the door of a mosque where I was standing. And now everything is dark. Doctors say I have lost eyesight forever.”
The youngest pellet victim 19 months old Hiba Jan of hamlet village of Shopian, was hit with a pellet in her right eye, that made a hole in the middle of her eyeball and damaged the vital part for vision. Hiba’s mother Masarat Jan cried loudly, alongside her husband Nazir Ahmed, “I wish the pellet in her eye had hit me.” “She is just a baby, my little baby,” her father cried with tears in eyes.
Children continue to get maimed by the wanton use of pellet guns by Indian forces in occupied Kashmir. The pellet victims; 8 years old Asif Rashid and 13 years old Mir Arafat, both of them were hit by pellets fired by ruthless forces to disperse protesters in Anantnag. Hundreds of pellets penetrated in their bodies, from their face to the lower abdomen.
A pellet pierced the retina of left eye of Aqib Zahoor 16 years old, from Pampore, leaving him blind on that side.
Mohammad Asif Dar from Baramulla was playing cricket when he was pelletized in the head, shoulder and chest. He has only 10% of his vision left in his right eye even after multiple surgeries.
Four-year-old Zuhra Majeed was hit by pellets in her legs and abdomen after her family was targeted by police outside their home on the outskirts of Srinagar’s Qamarwari on July 10.
On the afternoon of September 18, 2010, Amir Kabir was near the gate of a government hospital in Baramulla clutching his mother’s prescription. All of a sudden, he heard a loud thud and everything went dark forever.
Amir, then an 18-year-old student of class 12, is one of many Kashmiri young men who have lost their eyesight completely to pellets. Amir is lucky to be alive. In 2010, when pellet guns were first used, teenager Irshad Ahmad Parray and 20-year-old Mudasir Nazir lost their lives.
Hamid Nazir Bhat, a 16-year-old boy from Palhalan in north Kashmir has lost his right eye to pellets. Another 16-year-old, Suhail Ahmad Bhat, was blinded in the right eye when police shot pellets during a protest. Farooq Ahmad Malla, a 22-year-old resident of Hajin town in north Kashmir was completely blinded by pellets on March 17, 2014. A class 8 student, Faizan Ahmed, apart from pellets in eye, was also injured by a bullet in his head.
Now Activists like Insha Mushtaq, blinded at 14, have become symbols of resistance, drawing global attention to the crisis. Kashmiris are appealing the world that if they are shooting on our eyes and we are getting blinded, but why can’t you see the truth?
The rate of eye injuries by use of pellet guns has been enormous. Medics have warned that many Kashmiris would lose their eyesight from shotgun injuries since the protesters are being targeted above the waist often their faces. To take the revenge from Kashmiris, Pellet guns are even used as a lethal weapon at close range, thus penetrating all the pellets into one protester. Thousands of eye surgeries related to pellet injuries have been performed according to Medicins Sans Frontières. Ophthalmologists at local Hospital in Srinagar describe complex surgeries to extract pellets from eyes, often resulting in permanent vision loss.
The occupation forces even barged in the ambulances and beat up the injured persons and their attendants. Even hospitals have been attacked and staff harassed. The number of young victims affected by the current crowd control measures in Kashmir, particularly young boys and the use of pellet guns on women and children, speak volumes about the inhuman approach of the occupation forces.
Doctors of Government Medical College Srinagar staged a unique and silent protest inside the college, covering one eye with a bandage to represent hundreds of victims who have been blinded due to pellets during the ongoing unrest in the Kashmir Valley.
As a result of decades long Indian hegemony and use of pellet guns in Kashmir, there is an alarming level of mental health disorders. Doctors without borders have observed that 45% adults in the Kashmir Valley are suffering from symptoms of mental distress, 41% face depression, 26% display anxiety, and 19% are suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). New research on Pellet Victims of Kashmir Valley’ conducted by the Government Medical College in Srinagar draws a grim picture of the mental health situation in the Valley. According to this report, at least 85% of pellet victims have developed psychiatric disorders. This adds an unending cycle of restlessness, pain and misery to the people of occupied state.
The current state of law in occupied Kashmir grants officials of armed forces and security agencies impunity for even the most serious human rights violations, including the current pellet attacks and straight firing at the crowd. The atrocities being committed by occupation forces continue unabated due to an understandable silence of the international community and human rights organizations. This silence has encouraged India to pursue her policies of repression and oppression in Kashmir.
Despite the human rights organizations, international bodies, including the United Nations and Amnesty International condemn pellet guns as violating the principles of proportionality and necessity under the United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force, Indian occupation forces continue using pellet guns. The EU and UN have called for bans, while India defends their necessity. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has said that use of a shotgun “firing metal pellets is one of the most dangerous weapons used in Kashmir,” and has called for an immediate end to their use for crowd control.
Balancing security and human rights require urgent action: banning pellet guns, investigating abuses, and investing in non-violent conflict resolution. Addressing Kashmir’s political grievances is essential to lasting peace.
The black laws in vogue in Occupied Jammu and Kashmir give licence to armed forces to kill and handicap Kashmiris by using pellet guns. This comprehensive analysis emphasizes the urgent need for policy reform and humanitarian consideration in Kashmir. Not only International human rights bodies, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, condemn pellet firings but also Kashmiri Hurriyat leaders, Kashmir civil society, Human rights activists and conscious people in India are also raising their voice.
The United Nations and international community should play proactive role and pursue India to stop the use of pellet guns on peaceful protesters and its imperialistic attitude to curb the desire of freedom. The pellet is making Kashmiris blind and maimed. India should be forced to honour the United Nations resolutions for the permanent settlement of the lingering issue of Kashmir. (The author is : Chairman Institute of Voice of Victims)
