Mumbai doctors treat Kashmir’s pellet gun victims

A team of ophathalmologist surgeons from Mumbai and Pune are currently in Kashmir, providing care and support services to those injured by pellet guns.

Among them is Dr Sundaram Natarajan, one of the best vitreo-retinal surgeons of the country and the CMD of Aditya Jyot Eye Hospital of Mumbai.

He has been working almost round-the-clock at Srinagar’s government-run Sri Maharaj Hari Singh (SMHS) Hospital for the past few days, conducting surgeries. “He volunteered to come to Kashmir and treat our injured,” said Dr Yasir Wani, a consultant paediatrician at the J&K Health Services.

“This shows that we must not differentiate between people on the basis of religion, caste, creed or nationality. Kashmir thanks this kind soul and a doctor with a humane heart. Salute...!!”, he posted on Facebook.

Despite severe criticism at home and abroad and intense calls for ban on its use, security forces have continued aiming their pellet guns at protesters and stone-pelting mobs in Kashmir. Dozens of people, mainly young boys and girls, are admitted in hospitals in Srinagar and elsewhere in the Valley after they were injured, and even blinded, by pellets during the almost three-week-long unrest.

The team of four doctors from Pune and Mumbai headed by Dr Nataranjan arrived on July 26 and immediately got on the job. They have, so far, conducted about 30 major surgeries at the SMHS Hospital alone. Another team of doctors including ophthalmologists are scheduled to arrive next week “for the sake of patient care,” a spokesman of Borderless World Foundation - Jammu, Kashmir & Ladakh (BWF-JKL) said.

A senior ophthalmologist at the SMHS said, “We needed their support because the load is enormous and also some unscrupulous people are spreading rumours in the Valley that we’re unable to manage and there is lack of equipment available to us.”

Earlier this month, Dr. Sudharshan Khokhar was in Srinagar at the head of a three-member team of ophthalmologists and surgeon specialists from Delhi following a request made to the Central government by CM Mehbooba Mufti to help their local counterparts in coping with the situation, which was termed by him as “war like”.

Home Minister, Rajnath Singh who was in the Valley last week, had told reporters here, “I’ve asked the security forces to refrain from using pellet guns as much as possible but I also appeal the youth not to resort to stone-pelting”.

A day later, CRPF’s director general, K. Durga Prasad, expressed “regret” for injuries caused to youths due to firing of pellet guns in the Valley and said it would use this “least-lethal” weapon only in “extreme” situations as of now.