By Mudassir Maqbool
Shopian, May 21: Inside Parray’s small house in Handew Shopian, the air is heavy, no one looks into each others eyes. They don’t want to or does looking into them reminds of their son’s loss.
Asif Ahmad Parray had a burst of pellet pierce his face, eyes leaving him pool of blood. He, since then, cannot see. He is 14.
(Asif, before and after)
“There was a gunfight and protests had erupted in the area,” Nisara, mother of Asif tells INS.
Forces used tear gas and pellet gun to disperse the protesting youth and Nisara says, Asif was not part of them.
“He was hit in head, precisely on face. His eyes were ruptured. They took away a poor boy’s dreams,” Nisara laments.
Asif was not the immediate battle the family was fighting, his father, Zahoor Ahmad Parray was detained by Jammu and Kashmir police for being part of stone pelters.
When Asif was hit by pellets, Zahoor was under detention and family was running from pillar to post to secure his release.
“Zahoor is 60. How can he be part of stone pelting mobs,” asks Nisara.
As the hue and cry erupted over the plight of Parray’s, Zahoor was released on May 21, only to see his son’s face brutalised and his vision lost.
They say that doctors have advised them that one of Asif’s eye is so damaged that it need’s to be removed while there is no guarantee that his vision will come back.
The family of five is struggling to make two ends meet and adding to huge cost of medicare for Asif, they have been left with no choice but to ask people to be ‘generous towards them’.
Asif keeps quite and has gone numb to his surroundings. He has no answers to questions.
“There is nothing to speak about,” he said.
Parray’s join the long list of families whose loved ones have lost vision to use of pellet guns a crowd control mechanism by state.
Even though state has been consistent in calling it ‘non-lethal’ the ‘damage done by them is devastating’ Human Rights activists say.
Sources told INS that Shehla Rashid Shora of JKPM, a party led by Shah Faisal, had urged SSP Shopian to release Asif’s father on humanitarian basis.
