At least six members of a family were hit by pellets in Awra village of north Kashmir’s Kupwara district by government forces on Tuesday afternoon, among them two women and 1-year-old baby.
Four of the membes are being treated at district hospital Kupwara and two are undergoing specialized treatment at the SMHS Hospital in Srinagar.
One of the members, Nazir Ahmad Dar, 32, a government employee, has been admitted to the Ward 18 of the Ophthalmology department of this hospital. A doctor who attended to him said Nazir has multiple pellet injuries in the face, neck, head, chest, back, arms and tongue.
“Luckily not a single pellet has hit eyes,” he said.
Nazir said, “After having our lunch I went for a nap along with my one-year-old daughter. At around 430 pm, CRPF as well as police entered our village and were searching for youths who were protesting peacefully in nearby areas. They broke windowpanes of all houses in the locality and then entered the homes, ours too.”
“They (CRPF) entered my room and before I could say anything they fired from the gun. The pellets also hit my daughter’s back whom I was carrying in my lap,” Nazir said.
“I do not remember anything what happened after that,” he says.
At hospital, after regaining consciousnes, he came to know about the injuries to his father, mother, wife and his 18-year-old cousin Parveena who is also undergoing treatment in Srinagar. Parveena, admitted to the Ward No 7 of ophthalmology department in the hospital, has suffered serious injury in an eye.
“It was all normal till 2 in the afternoon but after that police as well as CRPF personnel started ransacking the houses and beat up the inmates. At that time I was washing dishes in a nearby stream when CRPF man hit me with baton on my shoulder, then he unzipped his pants. I ran towards my uncle’s house,” she told Kashmir Reader. I somehow managed to flee from the spot and joined a nearby protest rally in order to save myself from the CRPF personnel,” recalls Parveena, tears trickling down her face.
“But as soon as I reached there forces started firing pellets into the peaceful procession,” she said.
Doctors said she has pellet injuries in right eye, skull, left nasal bone.
“Her left eye is OK but we are treating the right eye which has suffered partial damage. Hopefully, her vision will not be affected much,” a doctor attending Parveena said.
