500 Pellet Victims Below 20, Mostly Students

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 24th Oct, 2016 ) : Around 500 pellet victims ,in occupied Kashmir, are aged below 20 and most of them are students who are still recuperating. According To Kashmir Media Service, Of 1,065 pellet victims admitted at general specialty SMHS hospital, and Soura Medical College Hospital with injuries to globe of eye, 523 are below 20 years in age.

The figures further reveal that 101 victims are under 15 years in age with youngest pellet-hit person a girl child aged 4. This recorded data about the age group of pellet victims, according to doctors, is an evidence of a depressing scenario.

"Most of these people, below 20, are students. Their eyes have been badly damaged due to pellet injuries," doctors at SMHS hospital said. Over the past three months, the bad prognosis of pellet injuries to eyes has been underlined by surgeons, both local as well as those volunteering from outside Kashmir to conduct surgeries on the victims.

"We cannot say which pellet-hit eye will regain vision, when, and how much," renowned retina surgeon and President of Ocular Trauma Society of India, Dr S Natarajan had told media men. The age data pertains to pellet injuries over a period of 100 days starting July 9, 2016-the day protests broke out in Kashmir following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen Commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani a day earlier.

Furthermore, 370 victims with pellet injuries in their eye(s) are between the age group of 21-25 years and many of these are also students of some degree or vocational course, doctors said. Doctors said it takes over a year to recover from an eye injury. "They have to undergo a round of surgeries, each consuming about a month for recovering," an Ophthalmologist at SMHS Hospital said.