Kashmiri pellet victim keeps sight of big picture, shines in Class 12 results

The face of pellet victims in Kashmir, Insha Mushtaq, who lost her eyesight in 2016, has continued to persevere away from the spotlight for years. The youngster did, however, have her moment in the sun again as she cleared her Class 12 board exams with 73%.

Setting her eyes on the civil services exam, Insha, 22, said, “There may be a lot of challenges in life but one should never give up,” Insha said after her results.

A Class 9 at the time when Kashmir witnessed spiralling protests following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in July 2016, she found herself in the crossfire of the commotion outside her home. A hail of metal pellets fired by security forces took her eyesight, fractured her skull and scarred her face just as she peered from the window of her home in Sedow village of south Kashmir’s Shopian.

In the five-month-long unrest, tens of hundreds suffered the wounds of pellets fired by forces to control the spiralling protests. Insha became the face of the plight of such victims as her pictures flooded social media. The use of the weapon, deemed “non-lethal”, in Kashmir had drawn international condemnation by the rights groups.

After the incident, Insha spent months in and out of hospitals and trauma centres. “Initially I was treated at Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital, then I went to Trauma Centre, Delhi for four months and also spent one month in Mumbai,” she said.

Her spirit held firm amid it all. Keen to continue her education, she took up learning braille, computers and English at DPS. “Braille was totally alien to me and I would come home weeping, but my teachers encouraged me and helped me learn,” she said.

The struggle to adjust to this new life continued, but she appeared in her Class 10 board examination in 2017 with a writer and joined DPS after clearing it.

Insha studied sociology, education, history, physical education and English in Class 12 and acquired 367 marks out of 500.

“As the results were announced, initially, I cried because I thought I would fare better, but then my parents told me that I have outperformed many students who have eyesight,” she said.

Family remains a constant source of strength for Insha, who said, “They tell me never to lose hope and that ‘I have to do it’. And I did it. I faced a lot of challenges and problems which I faced and moved on.”

Preparing for her Class 12 exams, she not only used braille, but also on recorded lectures. “I would record the lectures and then listen to them on a laptop to revise,” she said.

Insha was all praise for Jammu and Kashmir Centre for Peace and Justice, a non-governmental organisation that has been helping her pursue her education since 2018. “They rehabilitated me and supported me, especially Nadir Ali. They would help me with the studies,” she said.

Insha said she faced moments where her hopes dwindled, “Initially, I was hopeless and clueless.”

A meeting with an IAS officer who had also lost his eyesight, however, gave her strength. “I will be doing bachelors and then go for IAS coaching,” she said.

Moving out without a helper was testing, but Insha continues to brave these challenges in her pursuit of her next goal.