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SRINAGAR: The 19-month old girl Hiba Nisar, whose pellet injured eye evoked condemnation across the world, has been successfully operated and she will be able to see with the injured eye, doctors who treated the victim said.
“It was a two and half hour procedure. The pellet was lodged in her right eye which was removed successfully by our team of doctors. Her parents now will have to take precautions so that her eye doesn’t catch infection,” Dr Tariq Qureshi, who heads the opthamology departments at SMHS hospital where the victim was treated, said.
“In a month or two, with medication and regular check-ups, she will be fine,” Dr Qureshi added.
Hiba, a resident of south Kashmir’s Shopian district, suffered pellet injury on November 25 when she was being taken out of home by her mother as the victim had complained of headache due to teargas suffocation.
Protests had broken out in their village following an encounter in the nearby area, prompting the security forces to fire teargas shells and pellets to disperse the protesters. Six militants were killed in the encounter, one of the deadliest this year.
As teargas made its way into their home, making the air unbreathable, Hiba and her five year old brother were taken out by their mother, Marsala Jan. But just when the family stepped out of their home, forces fired pellets.
“I covered the face of Hiba with my hand and pulled my son behind me. Three pellets hit my hand but one evaded the cover and hit her eye. When I saw blood oozing out of her eye, I fell unconscious,” Marsala, a housewife, said.
Soon after the incident, Hiba, the youngest pellet victim, became the face of the horrors of the pump action shotguns which have damaged the eyes of over 1500 civilians in the past three years, according to human rights groups.
The picture of Hiba with a dressing pad on her right eye had gone viral on social media, evoking massive condemnation. The victim underwent a surgery on November 26 at SMHS hospital as she had suffered corneal perforation due to the pellets.
She underwent second surgery on Wednesday and doctors who are attending her say the treatment will be a long-drawn process which will require medication, “Her eye has been saved but the healing process will take time which will require precautions,” another doctors at SMHS hospital said.
