Doctors operate on child whose shooting in eye sparked Kashmir anger

SRINAGAR, India: Doctors have removed a metal shard from the eye of a toddler shot in Kashmir, whose horrific injuries became symbolic of India’s controversial use of pellet- firing shotguns in the conflict-torn region.

Surgeons who operated on Hiba Jan said it was too early to know if the 20- month- old girl would ever use her eye again after being shot with a pump- action gun that discharges high-velocity fragments.

The girl’s parents said they were shot at while trying to escape from clouds of tear gas during clashes between Indian forces and villagers in late November.

Her maiming underscored the contentious use of pellet shotguns against civilians in Kashmir, a disputed Muslim-majority region where protests against Indian rule often turn violent.

“We have removed the pellet, but her eye was devastated,” said one of the surgeons who operated on Hiba at the Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital in Srinagar.

“It is difficult to say (if surgery was successful) in the case of an infant, who cannot take a vision test or describe what can be perceived by the damaged eye,” said the doctor, who was not permitted to speak to the press and requested anonymity.

Hiba’s father Nisar Ahmad, seated by his daughter’s hospital bed, told AFP she was calm following her second surgery.