The smallest victim to pellet gun fire in Jammu and Kashmir, 19 month old Heeba Jan returned home from hospital.
Her home in the Shopian district of Kashmir was filled with children from the neighbourhood.
Doctors have still not been able to assess the nature of the injury. They feel the kid may have lost most of the vision on the right eye. Doctors may need to operate many more times to come to a conclusion.
The incident occured on Sunday, protestors raised anti-India slogans few hundred meters away from Heebas home. The Indian army fired tear gas shells to disperse the crowd. The situation intensified so the army fired pellet guns, one pellet injured Heeba’s right eye.
Blood oozed out from Heeba Jan’s eye, as she shouted for her mum. She passed out, and regained consciousness while travelling to a hospital in Srinagar.
~The Pigeon Express Views
The Indian army has all the rights to use force to protect India’s sovereignty. But at the same time it needs to learn to identify what kind of crowd is against it. We needs to restrain ourselves from using heavy weaponry against young kids like these at least.
The images and visuals of victims of pellet guns are extremely horrific and graphic.
There might be stray incidents where kids were caught in the crossfire, but figures say 40 killed and 1800 injured due to pellet gun fire. Most of them with eye injuries, leaving them dependant for the rest of their lives.