The NIOH has treated nearly 500 patients in the last few days, hailing from various districts including Dhaka, all grappling with severe eye injuries. Hospital records reveal that at least 278 of these individuals also sustained wounds to other parts of their bodies.
Mohammad Shamim, a 10-year-old who worked at a motorcycle workshop, sustained pellet injuries to both eyes during a clash between police and protesters last Friday in the Mirpur area of the capital. Doctors have said he will never fully recover his vision. “My son’s future looks grim. What will I do with him?” lamented his father, Mohammad Idris.
NIOH’s director, Golam Mostafa, confirmed that shotgun pellets used during the anti-quota protests were the primary cause of the injuries.
“In cases where the pellet embeds itself in the retina’s center or is forcefully ejected upon impact, partial blindness becomes the tragic outcome,” he said.
Researchers who looked at pellet injuries to protesters in Indian-administered Kashmir have previously found that when fired at close range, the pellets lack sufficient time to disperse, resulting in a concentrated cluster that moves at incredibly high speeds. This focused force transforms the pellets into projectiles akin to handgun bullets, capable of piercing deep into soft tissues, particularly the eyes, causing extensive and irreversible damage.
The devastating impact of pellet guns on eyesight hinges on the velocity and distance at which the pellets are fired, the study explained. The severity of these injuries has prompted international condemnation, with Amnesty International calling for a ban on their use for crowd control in Indian-administered Kashmir a few years ago.
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