Doctors get exhausted, stressed of treating pellet gun victims in Kashmir

“We are in physical and mental stress,” said Nisarul Hassan, senior consultant at the main hospital in Indian occupied Kashmir, SMHS Hospital, who was forced to use an ambulance to get home.

Dozens of volunteers received the injured at the hospital as ambulances brought them in from rural areas.

According to Reuters, paramedics and ambulance drivers said government forces attacked them on the way. The curfew restricts movement, severely disrupting daily life.

“India and Pakistan are fighting over my homeland but in the end it is only our blood that they manage to secure,” said Faizal Wani, 24, whose father was being treated for pellet wounds suffered in the clashes.

Another doctor said patients had been brought in with abdominal injuries from rifle bullets. “Our operating theatres are working non-stop,” the doctor told Reuters.

Troops have resorted to firing rifles and shotguns to quell stone-throwing protests sparked by the death of Burhan Wani, a field commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen separatist group.

India’s Central Reserve Police Force, which deploys a large contingent of paramilitaries in Kashmir, told a regional court that more than 100 people had been partly or completely blinded by shotgun pellets.

More than 40 days of atrocities carried out by security forces have overwhelmed the main hospital in Indian held Kashmir, where some patients with severe injuries said they had been beaten in their homes by troops.

House-to-house searches continued on Friday, authorities said.

At least 70 people have been killed and 6,000 injured in the ensuing clashes, many of them wounded by shotgun rounds fired by security forces enforcing a curfew across the Muslim-majority region.

Pictures taken by a Reuters photographer at Srinagar’s main SMHS Hospital on Thursday showed men with wounds across their backs and buttocks they said had been caused by beatings.

Another showed a crying boy, his head swathed in bandages, being comforted by his family, who said he had been wounded by shotgun pellets.

Shabir Ahmad Mangoo, a 30-year-old college lecturer died in custody of the Indian army. The commander of India’s Northern Army denounced the beatings and ordered an inquiry, Reuters reported.