‘I thought he was only trying to scare me’: CJP protester recalls being shot in face by pellet gun | Delhi News

NEW DELHI: “I fell to the ground and wasn’t fully conscious, but I knew what had happened,” recalled Irshad Shaikh, a 25-year-old protester who was allegedly shot by a pellet gun in the face. As people noticed him bleeding, they rushed him to Lady Hardinge Hospital on a scooter, he said.Originally from MP’s Jabalpur, Shaikh moved to Delhi two years ago and works with an IT company in Gurgaon. Despite suffering injuries to his face, neck and upper body, he said he does not regret joining the protest. “I did it for our future generations,” he told TOI Thursday.Shaikh said he had been attending the protest for nearly 20 days as he believed in the cause.On July 20, he reached Kerala Bhavan near Parliament around 9am for the ‘Sansad Chalo’ march. He remained there till about 11am before leaving briefly for a personal appointment between 12.30pm and 3.30pm. After finishing, he returned to the protest site near Jantar Mantar.“It was a peaceful gathering. There was no intention to create any trouble,” he said. According to Shaikh, the situation turned chaotic when security personnel began pushing protesters back. “There was lathicharge, and then teargas was fired. My eyes started burning and for a moment everything went dark. When we turned back, there was a police barricade and we stopped,” he recalled.Shaikh said he then appealed to the security personnel not to use force. “I told them, ‘Sir, please don’t beat us. We are students. We are citizens of this country. We are not terrorists’.”He alleged that moments later, an RAF staffer approached him. “He showed me his gun. I thought he was only trying to scare me, but then he pointed the weapon towards my face and fired. I never imagined he actually would,” Shaikh alleged.“Everything went silent for a moment. The pellets struck my eyebrow, eye area, cheek, nose, chin, neck, shoulder and chest. At first, I felt a burning sensation. Then I touched my face and realised there was blood everywhere,” he said.Shaikh said he remained conscious and managed to walk away from the spot before bystanders came to his aid. “Some people covered my face with a cloth and rushed me to hospital on a scooter.”Doctors found pellets lodged in different parts of his body. Shaikh said one pellet was close to the muscle controlling the left eye’s movement, another was found near a major nerve and blood vessel in his neck, and another close to his nose. Shaikh underwent surgery Tuesday, and has stitches near his eye and on his neck.Doctors said Shaikh is recovering well and is medically fit for discharge. The treating doctor said his eye has healed well after surgery, with no concerns regarding his vision.Shaikh said when Union health minister J P Nadda visited him at the hospital, he asked him what he was doing at the protest site, if he was just passing by. “I told him I was there because I believed in the cause. It was my duty to be there, that I was one of the protesters,” he said.Shaikh said his friends in Delhi have been taking care of him. Once he is discharged, he plans to return to his hometown and be with his family as he recovers.