Eleven-year-old Muneer was engrossed in a cricket game in the compound of his home when suddenly he felt a shrill, like an ‘‘electric shock’’ in his back, and fell down on the ground. His friend Danish examined Muneer’s body but found no injury marks. It was 1.30 pm on January 29. Eight hours later, Muneer lay stretched on a bed in SKIMS hospital, lifeless below the torso.Nobody knew what had suddenly gone wrong with the child, till the doctors found a bullet embedded in his spinal cord. Muneer’s family was shocked as they hadn’t heard of any firing incident in the neighbourhood that day.They approached the police and preliminary investigations unfolded the events. The police had fired in air to disperse clashing groups of Hurriyat and Congress at Habakadal and a stray bullet had travelled 2 km away to Abiguzar where it hit Muneer.‘‘The bullet has damaged his spinal cord and chances of recovery are very bleak,’’ said the neurosurgeon attending on him, Dr Altaf Ramzan.‘‘We are trying our best but clinically he is not showing any improvement.’’ Muneer, a student of class VII at Kamla Nehru Memorial School, is not even aware of the fact that he will never be able to play cricket again. When a group of friends came to inquire of his health, Muneer was cheerful and recalled the incident. ‘‘I felt as if I got an electric shock on my back. I fell down and couldn’t move my legs.’’Muneer’s parents initially attributed the numbness in his legs to a fall he had a couple of days back after he slipped from the staircase. ‘‘We had never imagined that he was hit by a bullet. Then, there was no blood either,’’ said Fayaz Ahmad, Muneer’s elder brother. Explaining the mystery why Muneer didn’t bleed, Dr Shafiq Ahmad, said: ‘‘The wound made by the bullet is very small. We think the bullet hit Muneer at a very low speed, penetrated his back and embedded in his spine’’. Ahmad said that generally the wound is smaller at the point of entry. ‘‘But once it penetrates into the body and comes out from the other side, it makes a bigger wound that bleeds.’’The police department, meanwhile, regrets the incident but shows its helplessness. ‘‘It is a very unfortunate incident,’’ said DIG H.K. Lohia. ‘‘We always try to reduce the collateral damage but people should also be careful,’’ he said.
