Self Care In A Blinding State

After a hail of 1.3 million pellets by security forces, some victims get together to rehabilitate in Kashmir

- Naseer Ganai in Srinagar

TO Muhammad Ashraf Wani, 28, the often-used phrase, “life of pain”, sounds like some kind of joke. He know’s better than anyone else what real pain is all about. There are 635 tiny pieces of lead embedded in his body and the vision in his right eye is completely gone, the young Kashmiri man lives through hell every waking moment. “If I stay at home, I will commit suicide,” says Wani. “The same thought occurs to every other person whose eyes were smashed by pellets. Though we are able to walk and talk, we are dead bodies,” he tells Outlook at a small room in Srinagar’s signature Lal Chowk.

So, Wani had to find a reason to live. That gave birth to the Pellet Victims Welfare Trust, an organisation he formed in early 2017 to help hundreds of others who have lost vision, partially or fully, to pellets fired by security forces across the Kashmir valley. Wani was hit by a hail of pellets on October 31, 2016, months after security forces killed Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, triggering an unending spate of violent street protests across Kashmir. Security forces retaliated in full measure against the stone-pelting protesters, leaving more than 100 people dead in one of the worst phases of violence in the Valley.