Feroz Aslam* sports an abashed smile whenever he hears the clink of a teacup on a saucer. He cannot see, but he knows it is his father.“For the past 10 years, it has been my parents – ailing themselves – who have been serving me food,” the 28-year-old told Al Jazeera. “Being their eldest son, it embarrasses me extremely.”Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listAslam was not born blind.He lost his vision a decade ago when, while running an errand to a fruit shop in Sopore, a town in Indian-administered Kashmir, he was hit by a rushing stream of shotgun pellets fired by Indian security forces during an antigovernment protest.Aslam remembers falling onto the ground as the hot projectiles seared into his skin. “Seven pellets went into my right eye and six into the left,” he said, adding, “and more than 300 hit my chest.”Upon being fired, pellet guns release hundreds of tiny iron balls that tear into the flesh and stay buried deep inside the tissues, from where it is nearly impossible to remove them.The pellets burned through Aslam’s cornea – the glazed coating that protects the eye’s sensitive parts – impairing his vision forever.‘Blood-soaked eyes’Aslam is among more than 1,000 Kashmiris who have lost their vision, partially or completely, since New Delhi introduced pellet guns in 2010 to quell street protests in …
