Many Lost Their Universe To Pellets, Why Job For Few Blinded?

Srinagar—Is it just a group of few or thousands of youth “who lost their universe” to brute and discriminate pellet use by government forces?

According to figures divulged by the government before State Human Rights Commission recently, many youth lost both eyes to pellets which the high court last year remarked are nowhere used in the “civilized world”.

The deputy commissioners of eight districts in their report stated that 2524 were injured by pellets, many in the eyes.

The data compiled by the department of Health and Medical Education puts the number of pellet victims during the 2016 uprising to at least 5840 in Valley alone.  

On Tuesday, an official spokesman said that Chief Minister as part of her “healing touch!” distributed orders of appointment among a “group of victims who lost their eyesight due to pellet injuries during the law and order situations in the Valley last year.”

“It may be recalled that on September 14 and 28 the Chief Minister had also disbursed financial assistance among two groups of such pellet victims. Besides, the Chief Minister had supervised the treatment of these victims last year as well,” the spokesman said.

The spokesman said Mehbooba Mufti initiated a series of measures for the “rehabilitation, social integration and empowerment” of youth of the State. “Recently the Chief Minister directed withdrawal of cases against more than four thousand youth involved in various cases of law and order nature. The step was widely hailed by all sections of society,” the spokesman added.

However, the statement is unclear on number of victims provided the job and its nature. “Is it sustenance that would sustain them and their family otherwise but for the state action?”

Even the answer is in affirmative, can the left out victims carry on with the life they have been left by the state?

It is also not clear how would those those teenagers who suffered partial damage to their eyes be compensated. Ideally, the government should have come up with a category-wise comprehensive plan to rehabilitate the pellet victims according to the nature of the damage they suffered. The current employment package to a chosen few, looks like, a mere eyewash on the part of the governemnt to undertake a larger rehabilition program for the pellet victims.

Should government come up with a clear policy and announce solace to all victims as otherwise state is responsible to dignified life of a citizen in an egalitarian state.          

In an observation during the hearing of Public Interest Litigation, a division bench of the high court last year observed: “Nowhere in the civilized world, are these pellet guns used.”

“Those who lose eyesight lose the universe”, the high court observed further and asked government to ensure timely treatment of those who have suffered injuries in action by its forces in the Valley. 

“It is everybody’s concern. Somebody losing his eyesight, loses everything. He loses his universe,” the court observed.

While the high court ultimately left decision on use or otherwise of the pellets to state, the later continues its usage even contemporarily. Recent incidents witnessed in Budgam and Pulwama districts.

“2016 will almost certainly be remembered as the year of dead eyes. The eye injuries have become such a focus of public anger that last week, in a conciliatory gesture, India’s home minister, Rajnath Singh, promised that the pellet guns, as they are known here, would be replaced by another type of nonlethal weapon in the coming days,” A New York Times report published in August last year described the pellet horror.

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