The current phase of uprising in Kashmir is now 85 days long. During this period, as per available estimates, more than two thousand persons have been injured. A sizeable number of them have been crippled or rendered paraplegic due to spinal injuries; that means they will never be enjoying the life as normal and would require others support for every single thing. It’s more painful than even having lost the life. They have to be dependent on others lifelong, and such a life is miserable than death goes without saying. Given the experience it is more likely that these unfortunate victims of state repression are going to suffer neglect, and subsequent depression, that could even cost their lives. The story of Haneefa, Kreeri, North Kashmir, is terribly painful. She has suffered multiple penetrating injuries; firearm injury with paraplegia and splinter injury to legs, with a fracture in the posterior elements of her D-6 vertebrae. One can easily have an idea about the plight of victims like her. The extent of trauma she suffered would have certainly been far less than what she actually suffered, had the cops not dragged her for a distance after she was hit by their bullets. But the cops did not relent and perhaps in pursuit of rank promotion or an award they displayed this brutality. Justice would demand that the cops responsible for such brutalities be forced to bear the cost of the treatment and their upkeep. Justice would also demand that they be held responsible for managing such patients. In a place where you have draconian laws like AFSPA and PSA, which confer powers on the men in Khaki to shoot to kill anybody or destroy anyone’s property or put people behind bars without trial even on mere suspicion. They can accuse them of being involved in some anti-national activity to silence the voice of dissent. In such circumstances there is no scope of natural justice being dispensed. While in the above case it were the men in khaki who deliberately dragged the victim post trauma; in most of the cases it is the ignorance of the rescuers who are seen exacerbating the injury of the victims by mal-handling. In fact for a delicate job like handling trauma cases, we need well trained and experienced rescue teams. The society’s response to such a state of affairs where we are coming across such incidents on daily basis has to organize awareness and training camps for volunteers whose services could be utilized in such eventualities. In the instant case as also similarly situated cases the least one can expect from the State government or for that matter Union government is that apart from according sanction to grant of a handsome monthly allowance in favour of the unfortunate victims to help their families to support them, some devices like motorized beds, wheel chairs, prosthetics etcetera are arranged and supplied to them to make life easier for them. Such an effort could be supplemented by some good Samaritans living overseas for whom it should be affordable to arrange such devices that could alleviate the sufferings of these victims of violence. And reduce their dependence on others. It is an established fact that in the Western world facilities do exist for spinal injury victims which make their lives somewhat comfortable, promote chances for their survival and even render them as useful members of the society. With such devices such victims can even do their jobs, though with impaired efficiency. There is an urgent need to reach out to such victims with solid help that would in turn help to establish peace in the society; otherwise these victims of State repression would continue to serve as festering wounds. The police and Para military forces need to be made alert about human rights so that they do not indulge anymore in acts of using brutal force against defenseless civilians who may be out on roads to register their protest or express a demand. Should the government fail, there are chances for eruption of more widespread civil commotion and disorder.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 5 Sep 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 5 Sep 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 6 Sep 2010 00:00:00 IST