NEW DELHI: With nearly 90 protestors in Jammu and Kashmir sustaining pellet injuries in the eye during police action against violent mobs, the Union ministry of health and family welfare on Wednesday rushed a three-member team of eye specialists to the state to assist in their treatment. "We found that the J&K police and CRPF were not adequately trained to deal with such protests and often used force that was not commensurate to nature of protests. So we had to use pellet guns as a last resort," said a police officer. "Hopefully, the damage to the eye should be reparable," said a J&K government official.Incidentally, the report of the three J&K interlocutors — mediaperson Dileep Padgaonkar, former information commissioner M M Ansari and academician Radha Kumar — submitted in 2011 had gone into the use of non-lethal methods to deal with stone-pelters and angry mobs in J&K. The result being, of the nearly 150 pellet injuries reported over the past few days of violence, nearly 90 are in the eye.However, with J&K chief minister Mehbooba Mufti having called for restraint in use of force against local civilians, the Centre is now trying to set right the situation by rushing a team of opthamologists to J&K to treat the eye injuries.

Source: Times of India July 14, 2016 02:51 UTC