Metal shard removed from toddler’s eye

The toddler’s horrific injuries become symbolic of India’s controversial use of pellet-firing shotguns in the conflict-torn Kashmir

SRINAGAR: Doctors have removed a metal shard from the eye of a toddler shot in Kashmir, whose horriic injuries became symbolic of India’s controversial use of pelletiring shotguns in the conlict-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 highvelocity 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 on Wednesday.

“It is dificult 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.

India introduced the oficially “nonlethal” 12-gauge pellet shotgun in Kashmir in 2010 when major anti-india protests and clashes with government forces left over 100 dead.

Reliable data is hard to come by in the disputed Himalayan region, which is claimed in full by both India and Pakistan.

But government data from 2017 revealed the weapon killed 13 people and injured more than 6,000 in eight months alone − including nearly 800 with eye injuries.

“We deal with such devastation every day at the hospital. Hiba is no different,” her surgeon said.

An insurgency in Kashmir against Indian rule has left tens of thousands of people dead since 1989 − most of them civilians.

But this year has been the deadliest since 2009, with more than 500 people killed so far. Authorities said Wednesday that incidents of violence were on track to double this year compared to 2017.

Various rebel groups seeking independence or a merger with Pakistan have fought against half a million Indian troops stationed in the territory.

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from British colonial rule in 1947.

Separately, former union minister P. Chidambaram on Thursday said that he “regretted” not acting on the Jammu and Kashmir interlocutors report as the then Union Home Minister in 2011.

“I deeply regret the way interlocutors’ report was handled. We should have acted on the report,” Chidambaram said in response to a query by former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah at an event here.

Following the massive unrest in the Valley in 2010, the Manmohan Singh government appointed a group of interlocutors comprising veteran journalist Dileep Padgaonkar, former Information Commissioner M.M. Ansari and social activist Radha Kumar.

After a year of deliberations and discussions with all stakeholders, the group submitted its report to then Home Minister Chidambaram in October 2011 and made several recommendations. None of these were eventually acted upon by the Central government.

Speaking at the event, Chidambaram said the “muscular, macho” approach adopted by the Narendra Modi government is bound to fail.