Kashmir : Indian Forces Fire a Million Pellets at Protesters
New Delhi, 17 Dzulqa’dah 1437/20 August 2016 (MINA) – India’s paramilitary force has confessed to using pump action guns to fire nearly 1.7 million pellets at protesters in Kashmir to disperse demonstrations.
The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) fired around 3,765 cartridges, each containing 450 metallic balls, between 9 July and 11 August – amounting to the discharge of almost 1.7 million pellets in total.
According to sky.com, the admission comes in response to a public interest lawsuit in the Jammu and Kashmir High Court seeking a ban on the weapons.
Pellet guns have injured more than 400 people in the valley, with many people suffering irreversible damage to their eyes.
At the Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital, 106 surgeries were performed in which five people lost one eye completely.
The federal government has had to send eye surgeons to Kashmir to help the victims.
Amnesty International India has termed the pellet gun a less “lethal weapon”, but said it still has “deadly consequences” and has called for an immediate end to its use.
Facebook campaign
Human rights group Never Forget Pakistan has launched a Facebook campaign to raise awareness of the issue.
It features the faces of celebrities including Bollywood actors Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as well as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, which have been photoshopped to appear as if they have been shot by pellets.
India’s home minister Rajnath Singh has told parliament that he has instructed chiefs of the paramilitary forces to exercise “maximum restraint” in dealing with protests. If at all, only non-lethal weapons must be used.
He also said a committee will be formed to review the use of pellet guns for crowd control in Indian-administered Kashmir.
In its defence, the force told the court that “it was difficult to follow the standard operating procedure (SOP) given the nature of the protests”. (T/R07/R01)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
