SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmir government announces financial assistance to a 20-month-old Hiba Jan, who is reported to be the youngest pellet victim in the valley.
According to Indian Express reports, Deputy Commissioner(DC) Shopian Owais Ahmed has provided a financial assistance of Rs 1 lakh to the family, said a J&K government spokesperson further adding that the administration would provide the infant with every possible support for her early recovery.
Hit with pellet in her eye, 19-month-old #Hiba may lose sight
A doctor at the ward shuddered at the sight of the little girl, whom he described as the “youngest pellet victim”. pic.twitter.com/rRjPs4qeMZ— فیاض احمد (@Fayaz__Ahmad) November 26, 2018
According to 32-year-old Marsala Jan, the infant’s mother, Hiba was playing inside her home during a pellet firing incident in Shopian district of South Kashmir on Sunday. The toddler sustained pellet gun on her right eye and was immediately rushed to a hospital.
“As soon as I tried to open the metal wire mesh door to get out, a soldier outside fired pellets at us,” Marsala told AFP at the SMHS hospital in Srinagar. “Instinctively, I covered Hiba’s eyes with my hand but pellets broke through the net and one lodged in her right eye,” she said, sat in a dark waiting room crowded with a dozen people admitted with pellet injuries in the same hospital.
The metallic balls have been removed from her eye but the doctors treating on the toddler were unsure whether Hiba could regain her complete eye sight or not. “Pellet had caused perforation in her cornea”, said a doctor.
“Gut-wrenching! The little Hiba (now a pellet victim) who probably can barely talk must have been the biggest threat to the ‘security’ and ‘Law & order’ in Kashmir. Someone who is presumably still crawling!! Wishing her a complete recovery. May God bless her”, wrote Sara Hayat Shah, additional spokesman of National Conference on Facebook.