A top Pakistani terrorist, believed to be a former commando of the Pakistan Army’s elite Special Services Group (SSG), had turned to age-old Ayurvedic treatment of using pure honey to treat his bullet wounds for early healing while hiding deep in the forests of Jammu and Kashmir, officials said on Sunday.
After the death of Yasir in the higher reaches of Yousmarg in the first week of September, a phone was recovered from him in which pictures were found of the honey-treated injuries of Moosa. The situation is analogous with burns. Dr Jahanzeb Sirwal, a veterinary expert, quoted pharmacology lessons in which honey acts as an osmotic agent that draws fluid away from the wound bed, aids debridement of dead tissue, and reduces inflammation.
Because he could not access medical treatment due to the security cordon around the area, the officials said, while holed up inside the jungles of Poonch and Rajouri, the terrorist applied honey to his wounds, tapping into its Ayurvedic healing properties to accelerate tissue recovery and prevent infection in the wild. Dr R P Parasher, President of the All India Doctors Association of Indian System of Medicine, explained that in Ayurveda, particularly in texts like the ‘Sushruta Samhita’, honey is central to ‘Vrana Chikitsa’ (wound care) due to its ‘Shodhana’ (purifying) and ‘Ropana’ (healing) properties.
They were transmitted across the border to their handlers in Pakistan to apprise them of the top terrorist’s health condition, the officials said. “Modern research provides possible mechanisms consistent with some of these observations: honey’s high osmotic activity, acidic pH, hydrogen-peroxide generation in some preparations, and other antimicrobial constituents can inhibit microbial growth and support a favourable wound environment,” Dr Parasher said. He, however, said that in gunshot wound healing treatment, care must be taken to clean the wound thoroughly as left-out particles of gunshot may hamper the healing process, though he cautioned that clinical treatment requires sterile medical-grade honey to prevent secondary infections. “When honey is applied to a wound, it speeds up the healing process and gets rid of any infection that may have been there, according to a research paper on Food Science and Engineering.
