Student loses eye to CRPF sling-shot
Srinagar, Sept 29: The fears that government was risking the lives of students by decreeing them to attend schools amidst curfew and protests came true on Wednesday when a schoolboy lost his eye after being hit by a marble shot at him through sling shot allegedly by paramilitary CRPF troopers.
A 9th class student of Extol Bhawan School Awantibavan, Soura, Aabid Mushtaq, minutes after being brought out of Operation Theatre at SMHS Hospital here, while revealing his agony to Greater Kashmir said:
“I came out on road to see whether my school bus has reached the pickup place. Two CRPF men caught hold of me and another one shot a marble in my left eye with a sling shot from close range. They also thrashed me with canes.”
Aabid said he showed his identity card also but the troopers didn’t honour it. “CRPF men told me that Kashmiri students need not attend schools,” he said. “You are following Geelani’s calendar. When you didn’t go to school for past two days, what is the need to go today,” he quoted the troopers as saying. “Follow Geelani’s calendar,” the boy was told while being thrashed.
Aabid’s father, Mushtaq Ahmad Bhat, a businessman, said since there was no curfew or protests in the area he allowed his son to attend the school. “My son was profusely bleeding in the eye. His shirt was fully stained with blood when we took him to hospital,” he said.
Muzaffar Ahmad, an eyewitness, said CRPF men ruthlessly beat up Aabid. “They later held him and one of them hit him with the marble,” he said.
“Kashmiri people are not safe in their own land. Forces are here to kill the people, not to provide security,” he lamented.
Aabid was rushed to SKIMS from where doctors referred him to SMHS Hospital.
A senior doctor who operated upon Aabid told this reporter that Aabid’s eye has been badly damaged with injury in eyeball. “He can’t see with that eye. We can only try to repair the eye to avoid deformity in the face,” the doctor said.
The doctor said that Aabid has been shot from very close range. “It is unbearable. Small kids are becoming visually handicapped in force’s action,” he said.
The family members said they requested the SHO Soura to register an FIR. But police denied, saying let the patient recuperate from the injury then only they could register a case.
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