Govt working out ‘jobs’ for pellet victims

SRINAGAR: In a bid to rediscover the erstwhile ‘healing touch’, the government is contemplating providing a job to persons who were blinded by pellets in 2016 and earlier, official sources said.

“The issues of victims of violence are being looked after from the Chief Ministers office and there has been some way-forward on that,” one official privy to the developments said. “Earlier, some pellet victims were extended some monitory help to manage their medical bills and others things.”

The government has understood the larger reality that pellet blinds will have no source for survival in future so they must have some assured income that will help them survive with least help.

They are expected to be trained in brail systems so that it enables their proper accommodation in the system on passionate grounds. The process, currently underway will get into implementation stage, early 2018, the sources said.

Sources said the idea is an off-shoot of the larger thought process that youth must be engaged so that they skip violent means. The state and the central government, they said, are working on a comprehensive plan to engage youth. While the state government has already converted a district jail into a “correction home’, the Home Minister has ordered the juveniles, if any, should be shifted away from jails.

Rajnath Singh’s recent direction on shifting of juveniles to Remand Homes and immediate review of their cases came after a high level meeting that was attended by Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and NSA Ajit Doval.

“There is a strong possibility of the review of the cases registered against youth who are first time offenders,” sources said. “This is aimed at preventing them from staying listed in the police records which can become a lifelong problem for them.”

Sources said the state government has already discussed the idea with the Kashmir interlocutor Dineshwar Sharma and the Home Minister Rajnath Singh is also on board. Besides, the state government is keen that certain programmes related to skills, trainings and deployment in private sector have to be scaled up.

A government report based on inputs from eight Deputy Commissioners across Kashmir, which was submitted to SHRC; according to reports suggest that more than 1725 people suffered pellet injuries in post-Burhan Wani unrest alone.

Details suggest that the injured included 154 from Kulgam, 51 from Shopian, 47 from Pulwama, nine from Anantnag, 137 from Ganderbal, 27 in Srinagar, 440 from Sopore and 812 from the rest of Baramulla. In Baramulla alone, six people have lost vision in both eyes, the report has said.

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