Government doctors at Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital have noted that 26 small, round wounds sustained by a journalist covering the students’ protests on Monday are “consistent with pellets striking” the right side of his body “at an oblique angle”.
The medical records of the journalist from Outlook magazine who was admitted to the hospital on July 21 offer the clearest evidence so far for the use of pellet guns during the youth protests in the national capital on Monday.
Delhi Police has denied that its forces used pellet guns on protestors.
Medical records from Safdarjung Hospital show that the journalist with Outlook magazine was hit by dozens of small metal pellets during the students' protest on July 20.
The records, seen by Scroll, add fresh evidence against Delhi Police’s repeated denial that its forces used pellet guns on protesters.
Scroll sent questions to the Delhi Police and the Central Reserve Police Force, asking if pellet guns were used on students. The story will be updated if they respond.
The Rapid Action Force, a unit of the CRPF, is reported to carry pellet guns as riot-control equipment.
‘Pellet entrance wounds’
A case sheet prepared by the hospital dated July 22 says that the journalist had gone to the protest site around 4 pm on July 20, when thousands of youth had turned up in central Delhi in support of the campaign by the Cockroach Janata Party.
The journalist was admitted to the hospital on the evening of July 21.
Doctors from at least three different departments examined him that night – the general surgery department, the orthopaedic department, and the forensic medicine and toxicology department.
All three reached similar conclusions. The hospital’s outpatient reference card mentions 26 small, round wounds on his right elbow, upper arm, and lower back. A note from the forensic medicine and toxicology department said that these were “small, uniform, circular to oval” with a diameter of two to four millimetres.
“The defects cover an area of 32 cm x 12 cm with inverted margins and circumferential abrasion collars surrounding the individual perforations with patchy bluish coloured contusions surrounding the perforations suggestive of pellet entrance wounds,” it said.
There were similar injuries on the journalist’s right flank that were “consistent with pellets striking curved area of flank at an oblique angle”.
A note on an X-ray undersigned by the department of general surgery says that the journalist had “multiple foreign bodies” lodged in the tissue under his skin.
Another note undersigned by the hospital’s orthopaedics institute mentions soft tissue injuries of “pellet wounds” on the journalist’s elbow and back.
A medico-legal certificate published by the magazine dated July 21 had noted the use of pellet gun “as informed by the patient himself”.
‘I saw them point a gun at me’
The journalist, who requested anonymity, told Scroll that he was caught between protesters and the police and the armed forces in Connaught Place around 4 pm on July 20. “The people [protesters] were pelting stones and the police were lobbing tear-gas cans,” the journalist added. “Then I saw them deploying pellet guns. I saw one personnel pointing a pellet gun at me. I turned around and started running and was hit in my back and hand.”
The journalist could not confirm if the official using the pellet gun was from the Rapid Action Force, the Central Reserve Police Force or the Delhi police.
The police have repeatedly denied using pellet guns during this week's protests. After videos and photographs of injured protesters spread online, the force posted on social media calling the claims "completely false and misleading" and said it does not even possess pellet guns. It warned of action against anyone spreading what it called misinformation.
The Outlook journalist’s case is not the only one. A 25-year-old protester, Shaikh Irshad Mansoori, needed surgery at Lady Hardinge Medical College to remove pellets from his face and neck. He alleged that he was hit with pellets by a member of the Rapid Action Force. Doctors managed to take out the ones near his eyes, but could not safely remove one lodged close to a blood vessel in his neck.
A 20-year-old Delhi University student, Sahil Lochab, who attended the protest on July 20, was also allegedly hit by pellet guns and may lose vision in one eye, The Hindu and Article 14 reported.
Pellet guns have been used in Kashmir and Manipur in the past. Over 6,000 people were injured by such guns in Kashmir between July 8, 2016 and February 27, 2017. Of them, 728 had been hit by pellets in their eyes.
Questions remain over which force may have used the pellets on the Delhi protestors. Neither the Central Reserve Police Force nor the Rapid Action Force has commented on whether pellets were used this week.
