No one fired pellet guns in Delhi.
Yet, Irshad Mansoori, 25, and Sahil Lochab, 19, are lying in Delhi hospitals post surgeries with serious pellet injuries on their faces and bodies. Lochab has '1% possibility' of regaining vision in his right eye. And there's a third victim, a reporter with Outlook, who was hit by pellets on the same day
Someone owes 25-year-old Irshad Mansoori an explanation. He lies in a hospital bed with a pellet lodged near a blood vessel in his neck even after undergoing a surgery on July 21. Someone should also explain to 19-year-old Sahil Lochab, recovering from a surgery on July 22, how he received a grievous eye injury and multiple pellet wounds across his body.
Delhi Police has repeatedly insisted that it did not use pellet guns during the July 20 march. No other security agency has acknowledged deploying them either. Over the past two days, Alt News met both young men, spoke to their families and friends, and traced a chain of evidence that raises a simple question: If no pellet guns were fired, how did they end up in hospital with pellet injuries?
On July 21, acting on a tip-off, Alt News reached Lady Hardinge Medical College (LHMC), where Irshad Mansoori was undergoing treatment. We met his friend outside the hospital, who said he was Mansoori’s only support at the hospital.
Mansoori, 25, is originally from Jabalpur and works at a private company in Gurugram. The friend told us that Mansoori was near Connaught Place on July 20 when he was struck by pellets allegedly fired from a distance of around 40 to 50 metres.
A selfie taken from Mansoori’s hospital bed shows multiple small wounds across his face and neck. Three pellets — one beneath his eye, another lodged close to a blood vessel in his neck, and a third in his facial cavity — caused particularly serious injuries. His friend told Alt News that he had signed the consent form before surgery but that neither he nor Mansoori had been given information about the treatment. He also alleged that hospital authorities refused to hand over even the CT scan report.
When Alt News approached the doctor who had come out of the operation theatre after Mansoori’s surgery, he declined to comment and directed us to the institute’s director instead. Around the same time, Mansoori’s friend, who had gone inside to see him after surgery, messaged one of the Alt News correspondents saying he would step out shortly. Minutes later, he wrote that he was not being allowed to leave the ward. He described an incident in which someone had arrived to meet another patient in the same ward, prompting what he said was a commotion involving the hospital administration and eventually the institute’s director. According to him, security personnel were posted outside the ward after that. By around 10 pm on July 22, Mansoori told Alt News he still had not been allowed to access documents relating to his own treatment.
Speaking to Alt News from his hospital bed, Mansoori further said, “I am in no position to press the hospital over my rights as a patient at the moment, especially because I do not have any real support system here. My only focus is on recovering properly and quickly. Right now, I am in a lot of pain in the eye, face and upper body because of the surgery and the pellets.”
“I am really worried about how the injuries will affect my life. I think there needs to be some compensation for my loss,” he said, while almost breaking down.
Mansoori was conscious and alert when he arrived at the hospital. He told us he was aware that another protester had also suffered pellet injuries and asked about his condition. When we informed him that 19-year-old Sahil Lochab, admitted to another hospital, could permanently lose vision in one eye, he was shocked.
Sahil, 19, a resident of Najafgarh, told us, “I had gone to the protest, and was somewhere around Jantar Mantar when I was hit with the pellets. I do not remember the exact time right now. I was looking in another direction when the pellets hit me.”
He sustained injuries to his right eye, face, chest, back, arm and the right side of his body. “I was first taken to LHMC by two fellow protestors. My mother along with my maternal uncle came to LHMC. After keeping me there for sometime, I was taken to Safdarjung Hospital and then to AIIMS. I have not been able to see from my right eye since the injury took place.”
His mother, Jyoti, told us, “The hospital authorities at LHMC informed us that Sahil cannot be treated here for the lack of facilities required in this case, and thus Sahil is referred to another hospital, but here during admission process (at AIIMS), they did not accept the reason of referral and I was made to sign on papers which did not mention the reason for referral from LHMC at all.”
His maternal uncle, Sultan, said Sahil waited for several hours before undergoing surgery after midnight on July 21. “Most of his outer portion of the eye, the white portion has been destroyed and the first surgery was about this white portion. The second surgery will take place in seven days, when the middle layer will be operated upon. Doctor told us that there is only 1% probability of regaining vision in the right eye.”
When Alt News met the family around 6 pm on July 22, they said they had still not received any document relating to Sahil’s treatment.
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