The government has directed the hospital administration of Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) not to provide to the media any details about the civilians injured in firing and shelling by the government forces.
Official sources at SKIMS told Kashmir Post that the administration has been ordered by the higher officials “to keep mum” on the condition of those injured by government forces during the raging anti-India uprising.
A senior official at the SKIMS, when asked to reveal some details about an injured patient from Kalaroos, Kupwara, declined to answer the queries of the Kashmir Post reporter and asked him to seek the details from somewhere else.
“I am not allowed to speak to the media. You should look for some other sources to acquire these details,” said a senior doctor in the hospital administration on the condition of anonymity.
Kashmir Post learnt this while investigating about the condition of some of the patients who had been grievously wounded by the government forces in the last week.
Recently, a 35-year-old man from Kalaroos, Kupwara, Manzoor Ahmad, who had been hit by a tear smoke canister in his head was brought to the SKIMS and our efforts to reach him or to get the doctors to speak about his condition was met with silence.
“We cannot answer any of your questions. You will have to speak with the Police Control Room to get any details about his condition as they are the ones authorized to speak about casualties,” the doctor said.
Another doctor at the hospital said that Manzoor’s skull bone had been damaged, leading to hemorrhage, and the brain matter too had been affected.
“We released the patient because we couldn’t do anything for him right now and there was more chance of him getting infected here,” the doctor said.
Manzoor, who has four children aged between two months to 12 years, was in SKIMS Intensive Care Unit (ICU) for eight days and in the ward 2A for 14 days.
After being discharged from the hospital, Manzoor has been putting up in a rented accommodation at Nawab Bazar area of old city where he lives in a decrepit room with flaking walls and with far higher chances of being infected.
Manzoor, in pain and unable to speak, breathed through the pipe that doctors have inserted into his windpipe after making an incision.
The doctor also confirmed that the government had instructed the doctors at SKIMS to keep silent.
“The government wants to make sure that SKIMS administration refrain from speaking to the media because most of those in critical condition are admitted here and they don’t want their details to go out,” the doctor said.
According to the doctor, three of the twelve patients admitted on Friday were in a critical condition, two of them on ventilators.
Authorities at SKIMS asked to keep mum on uprising injuries
