A recent report ‘Pellet Rain in Paradise’ released by the Kashmir Institute of International Relations provides new information on a crime that has gone unnoticed in Indian-occupied Kashmir for quite some time now.
Based on data gathered from pellet gun victims all over Kashmir, the report offers firsthand information about the extent of the atrocity. It includes details of views of ophthalmologists on pellet guns, accounts of victims, number of people who succumbed to death during these attacks and international views on the attacks.
According to the report, Kashmiris generally believe that pellets were fired directly into the eyes of civilians to punish them for demanding the right of self-determination. Indian forces were meant to follow Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) which called for targeting legs in extremely volatile conditions. However, more than 90 per cent of those injured had received injuries above the waist, which defied the SOPs.
The report further stated that pellet gun killings had been reported since 2010. However, this time, such killings had assumed monstrous proportions and had far exceeded the previously reported cases. According to a statement of Dr Qureshi, an ophthalmologist, when the pellet goes in the eye, it rotates and destroys everything inside it. It releases a high amount of energy inside the eye and thus the lens, the iris and the retina get matted up, he said.
According to the report, ‘The Hindu’, which is a daily English newspaper published in India, had on August 19, 2016 reported that the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) told the Jammu and Kashmir High Court that it used 1.3 million pellets in just 32 days on Kashmiri civilians to control street protests.
Pellet gun is usually considered as a non-lethal weapon but, in occupied Kashmir, it has been converted into a lethal weapon by using some special and deadly cartridges. The doctors, who attended on pellet victims, support the observation. Indian Express of July 16, 2016, quotes doctors at SMHS as saying that the pellets now used were sharp-edged and irregular, according to the report.
Some 30 odd victims of pellet guns were interviewed for the purpose of collecting data for this report including children and most of them had lost their eyesight, in either one or both the eyes for life. The report also mentions accounts of women who succumbed to death due to injuries inflicted by the pellet guns, including a 60-year-old woman Jameela who had a cardiac arrest “as the security forces aimed their guns towards her, which eventually led to her death.”
According to the statistics gathered by the institute, around 15,000 Kashmiris were injured in 2016, 1,178 of whom were pellet gun victims. 600 of the total pellet gun victims had been partially blinded whereas 52 had been blinded completely. Out of the victims of pellet guns, 243 were children with ages ranging from one to 12, 1,005 from 12 to 15, and 7,762 are young adults from 16-25.
The international community had been slow to realise this atrocity but their interest was now rising, said the report, adding that the then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, UN high commissioner for human rights, and various other politicians urged Pakistan and India to resolve the Kashmir issue through dialogue.
The report concluded with statements denouncing the pellet gun brutality from Amnesty International, UN and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousufzai. It also gave a mention to headlines about the Kashmir issue from publications all around the world, including The New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, The Hindu, Huffington Post, Times etc.
Read the full report: Pellet Rain in Paradise