Srinagar: Teenaged Insha can no longer watch the sun rise behind the garden ledge in her village; see the river bounce over small boulders as it hurtles down the Valley; or reach out for the apples that ripen on trees.
One single stroke of fate blanked out all the colours in her life. Forever.
The ninth grade student was blinded from pellets fired by security forces while dealing with violent protests in Sedav village of Shopian district over the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani.
Insha's face and eyes were peppered with pieces of iron, about as small as sand grain, and doctors at the Intensive Care Unit ICU of premier SMHS hospital in Srinagar see no hope. Both her eyes have been badly damaged, with iron filings lodged in her retina.
For the first 12 hours after she was wounded, she battled for life before doctors said she would pull through. "It would be a struggle. Actually a curse," a doctor said.
Insha, her siblings, and her mother were sitting inside the kitchen on Tuesday evening when clashes broke out between protesters and police. Her mother says Insha got up to look out of the window, but suddenly let out a sharp cry of pain and collapsed.
"We rushed to her and when I was helping her get up, I could see Insha's face was smeared in blood. Police fired in her direction without any reason." she says.
A senior police officer from Shopian said Insha was part of the stone-pelting crowd and that she was injured in clashes.
Her father Mushtaq Ahmad Lone, a farmer, was not at home. Her mother called the neighbours who took her first to the district hospital in Shopian from where she was referred to the SMHS hospital.
"Over the last two days, she has been lying here. She asks why she can't open her eyes," the mother says.
Insha's eyes are covered with soft bandage, and her face is swollen and disfigured. It would take her time to come to grips with this new reality. That of living with a lifelong disability.
Over the years she would require repeated surgeries that are painful, time-consuming and costly. And specialised treatment and aid. Even then doctors are unsure of her getting back her eyesight. A team of eye specialists from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, who visited the hospital, too rule out a miracle.
Insha is in a list of more than 100 patients who have received eye injuries from pellets fired by security forces to tackle violent protests. Doctors at SMHS say many patients would lose eye sight, while others would have to undergo a cumbersome procedure to get cured.
Dr Sajjad Khanday, a senior opthalmologist at SMHS hospital, says some of the eye injuries are grievous.
"Some 80 patients have been operated up. Ten to 20 patients don't have a good prognosis. Their damage is serious," he adds.
The spate of severe injuries have intensified calls to replace the high velocity pellet guns - in use since 2010 for crowd control - with high pressure water cannons and rubber bullets. But that call is unlikely to be taken now, given the size and intensity of protests.
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