Behind his thick glasses, 25-year-old Inam Ahmad’s eyes move with a strained flicker, a visible reminder of the permanent damage inflicted by pellet guns in Indian-administered Kashmir.

“My life is not only dark. I live with the pain every day as the pellets in my skull move or heat up,” says Ahmad, who lost 80 percent of his eyesight in 2017 at the age of just 16 when pellets fired by Indian armed forces pierced his skin and lodged inside his head, behind his eyes.

Originally developed for hunting birds, the pellet shotgun fires hundreds of metal shrapnels and has been used on protesters by Indian forces in Kashmir.

Even as the “cruel” weapon remains banned for hunting animals in many countries, a 144-second promotional video of an Indian film Chauhaan declared that these metal pellets inflict “limited damage” on protesters.

Released on 28 June, the teaser has sparked outrage, with critics saying that it trivialises the humanitarian crisis caused by pellet guns, which have caused “mass blindings” in the region.

The Bollywood film, starring Ajay Devgn, is directed by Neeraj Yadav and produced by Colour Yellow Productions and Jio Studios.

Jio Studios is owned by Reliance Industries, the conglomerate led by billionaire Mukesh Ambani. Opposition figures in India have described Reliance’s media interests as being closely aligned with the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party’s right-wing Hindutva narrative on Kashmir.