Inside the ophthalmology ward of Srinagar's SMHS Hospital, the air hangs thick with the odour of disinfectant, defiance, and despair. As I glance through his case sheet, 17-year-old Suhail Ahmed Mir, probably mistaking me for a doctor, half rises from his bed. On hearing that his account is going to print, the tall boy with brownish eyes snatches my notebook and tears the page. The smile with which he had greeted me disappears. With a voice that is a mix of pain and rage, he shouts, "Who will get my sight back? Can you?" Suhail is a pellet victim and belongs to south Kashmir, the epicentre of the ongoing agitation in the Valley, which was sparked by the killing of iconic militant commander Burhan Wani on July 8.
The hospital ward may help to understand why the young generation of Kashmir has been out on the streets for the past month, bursting with anger and shouting, "We want freedom" and "Go India, go back". It presents a dreadful scene: partially or fully blinded victims of pellet injuries occupy all the 32 beds, with two patients sharing many single beds. Doctors say not a single bed has remained empty since July 9 when the patients began arriving. The victims have bruised, swollen faces; their eyes are covered in cotton and surgical bandage. In their teens and twenties, most of them are from south Kashmir. Their future looks as dark as the glasses they are wearing.
Suhail says he was part of a 'peaceful' protest march in his native village of Belloo in Pulwama district. When CRPF troopers intercepted them, he and his associates retaliated with stones. A moment later, the troopers fired bullets and pellets. Two pellets ruptured Suhail's left eye while his torso was riddled with as many as 38 pellets. "I fell and was lifted by some youth to the nearby hospital from where I was brought here," says Suhail. The CRPF and police, he adds, beat them up and damaged the ambulance while on their way to Srinagar. Doctors fear that Suhail may be blinded in his one eye for life, his brother told Outlook. For his part, Suhail is not only unremorseful for taking part in the protest but the prospect of a dark future has hardened him. In a defiant tone, he says the moment he will be discharged from the hospital, "I will go back to the street and join protests." But these protests, he quickly adds, will not make a major difference. "Bandook chu tulun (I have to pick up a gun)," he says. His brother and two young cousins attending to him nod in agreement.
Lying next to Suhail's bed is Aqib Nazir. Also from Pulwama, this 20-year-old minces no words when asked if he was throwing stones at the forces. Aqib is among the first pellet victims of the agitation. He had rushed to Tral, the native town of Burhan, on hearing about the latter's killing in a controversial encounter by police. "I was marching along with tens of thousands of mourners," he says. The police and CRPF fired pellets and bullets on them. Aqib was hit in his right eye. Will he rejoin protests, I ask him. "Of course," he shoots back. "I will continue to resist the Indian occupation. Burhan fought with gun, I am fighting with stones. Stone throwing is a part of the resistance and not fun for us as many would like to believe," he says. The doctors, meanwhile, have assured Aqib that he will get back his eyesight soon.
Not as lucky as Aqib is Javaid Ahmad, 24. Also unlike Aqib, he is not a stone thrower. A pellet hit him in his right eye when he was going with his sister in north Kashmir's Bandipora on July 29. "I had to drop my sister at our maternal home. It was Friday and people were pouring out on the streets after the noon prayers. As the number of protesters swelled, the forces fired tear gas canisters; pellet guns followed it. I ran for cover, and suddenly a pellet hit my eye and I fell down," he says. Some youth removed the pellet partially from his eye while a part of the pellet was still suspended inside; it was later removed at the hospital. Javaid has lost sight in one eye. He says that protests and stone pelting will not bother New Delhi. "India is a powerful country. See how its media is projecting Kashmiris, the victims, as villains. I do not think we can defeat India," he says.
The youngest pellet victim in the ward is Aanif Yusuf Bhat, a 12-year-old student. He was bathing in a stream with his friends at Donipawa, Anantnag on July 18 when CRPF troopers were chasing protesters in the area. In the melee, a pellet hit Aanif in his right eye. "I was writhing in pain. I could not figure out what had happened," recounts Aanif. Doctors have twice operated on his eye, and luckily for him he's gradually getting his eyesight back. "I am very eager to play cricket again," he says. The incident has, however, shaken him. "I will not venture out during protests. Now if I will see a soldier, I will run for my life," he says.
Since Burhan's killing, nearly 60 people—aged 13 to 40—have died in police and paramilitary action. Most of the fatalities have occurred in south Kashmir, bastion of Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti's PDP. The number of injured is put at a staggering 5,000. Between July 9 and August 5, at the SMHS hospital alone, ophthalmologists have performed nearly 280 surgeries of pellet gun victims. Ironically, the Modi government told the Supreme Court on August 5 that only 51 persons with eye injures were treated in the Valley hospitals. On the same day, 91 patients were received by the hospital and among them, 50 were eye injuries. Of the pellet victims brought to the SMHS Hospital so far, as many as 202 have been operated upon once and 77 twice; 24 were hit in both the eyes of whom four could never see again. The prognosis for rest of the victims is not encouraging, though.
Among the critically injured is 15-year-old Insha Malik who was hit in her both eyes when she was standing at the window of her house in Shopian. Now blinded for life, she was later moved to the AIIMS, New Delhi.
Dr Rashid Maqbool, one of the dozen eye surgeons working round the clock in the SMHS hospital, says the ongoing agitation differs from those of 2008 and 2010. "It would not be an exaggeration to say that all world records have been broken by our department considering the number of pellet injury patients we admitted and operated upon," he says. Dr Maqbool says that he and his colleagues find it extremely difficult to remain focussed given the magnitude of the task before them. "Remember these kids are 10, 12, 15 and 20 years old. When we know they are blinded for life, what can we do? How can we just tell them that the chances of regaining eyesight are bleak?" Dr Maqbool fears that some of these injured boys are so angry that "they will pick up stones again and lose the other eye too".
Indeed, the situation is disastrous, as India's leading retinal surgeon Dr Sundaram Natarajan put it. "This is for the first time that I saw pellet injuries. The eye injuries in Kashmir are unique and more severe than other parts of the world especially in conflict regions," says Dr Natarajan, who headed a three-member team which conducted 46 eye surgeries here since July 26. "Some of the patients will gain eyesight but I don't want to give false hope." Before Dr Natarajan, Dr Sudarshan K. Kumar of the AIIMS was in Srinagar with a team of ophthalmologists following a request by Mehbooba Mufti to the Modi government. Dr Kumar echoed what his local counterparts have been saying since July 9: "We have never seen injuries on this scale."