By Raqib Hameed Naik, TwoCircles.net
Srinagar: Even after the J&K High Court on Saturday called for an immediate end to the use of pellet guns, the CRPF in the valley seems in mood to heed to the courts suggestion, saying it would continue to use pellet guns describing them as “least-lethal” weapon.
Director General of Central Reserve Police Force, K Durga Prasad said in a press conference in New Delhi that the troops would use pellet guns only in “extreme” situations.
“We feel very sorry for them as youngsters have to bear injuries due to the firing of pellet guns,” DGP said while expressing his sympathies with the injured youths.
“We ourselves are trying to use it in bare minimum so that there are fewer injuries. But we use them under the extreme situation when crowd control fails by other means,” he added.
Last week, the high court bench comprising of Chief Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar and Justice Muzaffar Hussain Attar had said that prevailing situation in valley is highly abnormal and state government should discontinue use of pellet guns for crowd control during law and order situation in view of the statement made by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in Parliament.
“The (Union) Home Minister has said in the Lok Sabha that an expert committee will be framed to find substitutes to pellet guns. This statement should be sufficient for the government to discontinue the use of pellet guns,” the two-judge bench had said.
The court had also directed the government to provide necessary treatment to all those injured in the ongoing unrest and shift those, who needed specialized treatment to other states.
Introduced in 2010, pellet is a non-spherical projectile made of a malleable material, usually lead or lead alloy, designed to travel at subsonic speeds when fired from a gun. The pellets shots used in Kashmir are made up of lead-antimony alloy which are proving pestilent thus inflicting multiple organ injuries and subsequent years have seen a surge in cases of people with loss of eye sight due to its use from a very close range.
In subsequent protests after the death of Hizbul commander Burhan Wani, hundreds of street protesters have been maimed with many losing their vision in one or both the eyes due to the excessive use of pellet guns by security forces in valley.
Related:
Pellet Guns: Non-lethal weapon bringing silent deaths to unarmed protestors in Kashmir