Pellet
guns in the Kashmir Valley
For a month I have been following with fascinated
horror the injuries and killings by pellet guns in the Kashmir Valley. These pellet
guns were introduced after the last major bout of stone pelting in 2010 as a ‘non-lethal’ mode of crowd control – because they do
not kill (only maim). Today the Indian Army distances itself from the mess by
saying that it’s the CRPF which is tackling the protesters. There are three
main arguments that I have heard so far:
a a) The
CRPF has instructions to fire below the waist so if any protester got injured
in the head it was because he or she bent down to pick up a rock
b) In
the heat of trying to quell the protests, the aim of the CRPF may have been a
bit off
c) Although
pellet guns are (‘properly used’) ‘nonlethal’, they are used in the last resort
– and when anyone is being attacked by a murderous mob (possibly containing
armed militants)
that is much larger than your own
forces, then they will use the pellet guns in self-defence in the most
effective way and even at distances much lower than the ‘recommended range’.
I think that any dispassionate
examination of the facts will show that there was either criminal incompetence
or murderous intent at work here. Even the fascist Israelis faced by hostile
(and suicidal) Palestinians do not use metal pellets; they use rubber- or
polyethylene-coated metal pellets. Even these coated pellets cause fatal
injuries at short range, but uncoated metal pellets are bound to be much worse.
Having said that, I think that
Kashmiri protesters are also being extremely callous in bringing, day after
day, young boys to the protests: if the CRPF actually abide by the policy of
aiming for boots, the children are much more likely to be hit.
I have tried to analyze the available
data – although even thinking about somebody getting pellet injuries in the
body, head or eyes is difficult – it is important to do it so that such stupid
and inhuman methods are banned – just as land mines were. Even if he did not do the math, any competent and experienced Indian Army
officer should have been able to foresee the kind of damage that pellet guns
will do to crowds of civilians.
India has not done itself
any favours by refusing to stop the use of pellet guns in the Kashmir Valley.
With the huge amount of data available in the media or the internet, India is
very likely to be attacked for human rights violations – not just by Pakistan –
but by the whole world, maybe in the International Court of Justice. Forget
about winning hearts and minds in Kashmir, and concentrate on just basic human
decency. The defence analyst Ajai Sahni
(mentioned below) doubts whether there are any truly non-lethal weapons, since
they all have ‘issues’. But the use of pellet guns should be beyond the pale
even as ostensibly ‘non-lethal’ weapons: the scatter of pellets is too much for
them to be ‘aimed’ with any tolerable degree of accuracy. Only Egypt and
Bahrain use pellet guns – not the best of company for India to keep.
Even the hard-line Kashmiri, Sushil
Pandit agreed that the huge damage inflicted on protesters is ‘gut-wrenching’,
while Sitaram Yechury called the use of these weapons as ‘criminal’ and ‘inhuman’.
In the fortnight since the killing of
Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, personnel of the Central Reserve
Police Force (CRPF) have fired as many as 2,102 pellet
cartridges in the Valley to disperse protesters.
The Sunday Express has learnt that over
50 per cent of the 317 people, who sustained pellet injuries, have been hit in
the eye.
The CRPF is also looking at the use of Condor guns used
by UN peacekeeping forces. The guns fire spherical rubber pellets which cause
painful bruises.
The use of pellet guns by CRPF is second
only to tear smoke shells which have been fired over 4,500 times. The
CRPF has ten mandated non-lethal weapons
for use in different situations. Other
non-lethal weapons used by CRPF in the Valley include plastic pellet guns,
rubber bullets, stun grenades, multi-button shells,
blank rounds, pepper balls and capsicum
grenades. All have been used in the recent protests.
CRPF Director General K Durga Prasad, while expressing
concern over civilian injuries, said: “Only after all non-lethal options are
exhausted, pellet guns are used.”
CRPF sources said that pellet guns are
most effective because the cartridge contains hundreds of small pellets which
spread out after being fired and cover a large part of the
crowd. Plastic cartridges, on the other
hand, fire just three plastic pellets while rubber bullets are for target firing.
There is a peculiar problem with tear smoke shells.
“If the wind is not favourable, it will
blow away from the crowd without much impact. Protesters also have become smart
over the years. They throw back the shells
towards us, forcing us to retreat,” a
CRPF officer said.
Similarly, pepper balls and capsicum
grenades (cause severe burning sensation) are best suited for targeting small
crowds in alleys and lanes.
There is no such problem with pellet
guns. “They also cause prolonged physical pain, forcing the injured to retreat.
Earlier, forces used No. 4 pellets which are bigger
in size. But injuries caused by them
were potentially fatal.
We have now shifted to No. 9 pellets and occasionally use No. 8 pellets,” the
officer said.
Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for
use of non-lethal weapons and training of men who fire them has been a cause of
concern.
CRPF sources maintain that the SOP
prepared by Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) has no
mention of pellet guns.
“We (CRPF) have our own SOPs. We have to ensure that
pellets guns are fired from a distance of at least 50 metres and are aimed at
boots. Also, in a group of 20 CRPF men,
only three carry pellet guns. The rest carry other
non-lethal weapons,” another CRPF officer said.
“Aiming it wrong” Justice Harjit Singh Bedi Ind
Exp. 23rd July 2016:
The data about pellet guns has been taken from the
article by H.S.Bedi, sourced from “Forensic Science in criminal investigations
and trials”:
|
Range
(metres)
|
Diameter
of spread circle (metres)
|
|
10
|
0.54
|
|
15
|
0.71
|
|
20
|
0.88
|
|
25
|
1.05
|
|
30
|
1.22
|
|
35
|
1.44
|
This data is plotted and fitted to a straight line:
The data from the article by Bedi is fitted (see above
plot) to:
D = 0.19524 + 0.03429 R
where D is the diameter of spread at a distance R.
According to C. G. G. Aitken and David A. Stoney in,“The
Use Of Statistics In Forensic Science” (CRC, 1991) pp. 170-5 :
D is a linear function of range R, and D is the
diameter of the circle that encloses all the pellets at a distance R.
The slope of D vs R (0.03429) corresponds to an
angular spread of 1.96° - that is at a fairly short distance there is not much
spread.
At a distance of 10 metres, the angle subtended by a
human face is about: 1.2°.
A human face is typically 15 cms wide and 23 cms high.
Note
that this is a simple approximation of a face projected on to a rectangle. It
disregards the curvature of the face. An example is that the projected area of
a sphere is half that of
its frontal surface area:
Where beta is the angle between the normal to the
area element dA and the normal to the arbitrary plane on which we wish to
project – in this case, the frontal plane.
However, one can think of the 15x23 cm2 as
the smallest rectangle completely covering the face as seen from the front.
A pellet gun emits 600 pellets in a circle of diameter 0.54
metres at a distance of 10 metres, and each pellet is of 1.22 mm diameter.
If the circle is centred (aimed) around the face, it will be
hit by: 600 * (15)(23)/[(3.14)(27)(27)] =
90 pellets.
Radiographs of the heads of Kashmiris hit by pellets
show a large number of pellets – maybe around 100 in the head.
The radiographs
are there in thequint.com:
There are three images of human heads: the one on
the left has more than 120 pellets, the one in the middle more than 40, and the
one on the right about 10. These pellets are clearly
visible and the scanned images are not of diagnostic
quality, so the actual number is probably more. And the images are taken from
one side of the head, so there may be more pellets on the
other side of the head that is not shown.
The size of a human eye is roughly 2.5 x 1.5 cms.
What is the chance a pellet will hit an eye?
The total area is 7.5 cm2 for both eyes.
The chance of a single pellet hitting the eye is:
(7.5)/[(15)(23)] = -0217. About 2%.
So the chances of it missing the eye are about:
97.83%.
But if we assume that 90 pellets may hit the face, the
chances that all of them will miss an eye is:
(0.9783)90 = 0.139.
That
is, 86% probability of hitting an eye at a distance of 10 metres.
|
R
(m)
|
Probability
of
Hitting
an eye (%)
|
|
10
|
86
|
|
20
|
53
|
|
30
|
32
|
|
40
|
21
|
|
50
|
15
|
|
60
|
11
|
|
70
|
8
|
|
80
|
6
|
|
90
|
5
|
|
100
|
4
|
Let us assume only 30 pellets actually hit the face,
then the chance that one of them will hit the eye is: 0.483, or 48.3%.
In today’s Indian Express article by Deeptiman Tiwary,
the report is that over 50% of 317 patients have been hit in the eye (24th
July 2016).
The number of cartridges has been given as 2,102. The
fact that 317 people were hit means that they were quite accurate: they hit 15%
of
the time – and they hit an eye with more than 7% of
the cartridges used.
This would argue that the people who have been hit
have all been deliberately targeted by firing at the head. If the crowds were
all dense, then it is possible
That about 85% of the shots were not targeted directly
at people – either deliberately or by bad aim.
“There is a pattern behind
the action by forces on the protesters. At least 90 percent of these persons
had firearm injuries above waist—in head, chest, and abdomen,” said a
senior doctor at the SHMS hospital.
This refers to all firearm injuries - including bullets and pellets.
In any case, the fact that
>50% of those hit were hit in the eye implies that the aim was above the
waist.
The argument by
some military participants on TV has been that the victim may have been hit in
the face by pellets because he bent down
– but this
argument is difficult to sustain for more than a hundred victims.
At a distance of 10 metres,
a human who is 1.5 metres tall subtends an angle of 8.5°, as compared to about
1.2° for the face – while the angular range of the pellet gun is 1.96°. Firing below the waist should indeed be
possible. Also, considering the total number of pellets embedded in the bodies
of the victims, it is extremely unlikely that the CRPF
actually aimed from a
distance of 50 metres. If they had, the spread of the pellets would have been D
= 1.7 m.
Suppose we consider a
distance R =43.7 m. At this distance, D = 1.5 m.
Assume a human being has a projected
frontal area of 1.5 x 0.4 m2 (i.e. 0.6 m2). Then the
number of pellets that will hit him, assuming that the pellet gun is perfectly
aimed is: 300*(0.6/1.77) = 102,
where the pellets are
distributed across an area (pi)D2/4
= 1.77 m2.
Some of the radiograph
images in thequint (mentioned above)
show this kind of distribution of pellets across the whole body of the victim, and in the two
images of the front view of the body the numbers of pellets is clearly more
than 40.
This would seem to imply that, in some cases
at least, the victim was fired upon by CRPF at the mandated distance of 50
metres.
Unless a comprehensive
database is produced by doctors in the Valley, it will be difficult to draw
more accurate conclusions.
Either the CRPF personnel
were untrained – or some of them deliberately targeted their victims. Also, see
Ajai Sahni’s comments below:
PHR report:
Smaller
pellets may have wider dispersal patterns and less accurate aim; larger pellets
may have higher kinetic energy.
Metal
shot has been banned in most countries as excessively dangerous, but it is still used regularly in Egypt & Bahrain.
The
UNDP report, ”Crowd Control: Israel’s use of crowd control weapons in the West
Bank” (Jan.2013) researched by B’Tselem
does not mention metal pellets at all: the
only pellets used are coated with rubber or polyethylene. And rubber bullets
were taken out of use before the second intifada.
The
pellets being used by CRPF in Kashmir are not Israeli, and are manufactured in India
by the Ordinance Factory in Ishapore, according to The Hindu:
.
In
Kashmir, the Battle of Stones and Rubber Pellets is Politics by Other Means
“It is not the brutality of
the police or forces that has caused blinding injuries among agitators – it is
the evaluation and selection process that resulted in the acquisition and
deployment of pellet guns, despite well documented and recurrent evidence of
the unacceptable consequences of their use in the control of violent crowds,
globally (and even in J&K where they were first used in 2010).
The Ministry of Home Affairs
has now belatedly announced the formation of a committee to evaluate options to
pellet guns.
However, even a cursory
examination of available ‘non-lethal’ technologies would demonstrate that none
of these are without their own risks.”
Another Kashmiri protester succumbs to pellets
8th Aug.2016 Srinagar Peerzada
Ashiq
“Doctors who performed
surgeries on those hit by pellets in SMHS and SKIMS hospitals in Srinagar told
The Hindu that the three civilians
died because they were shot from “a very very close range with the intention to
kill.”
A pellet victim Riyaz Ahmad
Shah, 21, a resident of Srinagar’s Chattabal locality, had his abdomen ripped
apart last week. “More than 300 pellets were lodged inside his body, affecting
all vital organs.
This only shows the gun was
emptied by keeping barrel close to the victim’s body,” said a doctor.
Figures at the Valley’s premier
SMHS hospital paint a grim picture.
Of 933 pellet
cases, 356 suffered eye injuries and 324 extra-ocular injuries. Similarly, the hospital treated 67 bullet
injury cases.
Non-lethal tear-smoke shell
injuries are less at 35.”
The fact that 356 patients
suffered eye injuries, 324 suffered extra-ocular injuries – presumably to the
head – and the remaining 253 suffered injuries to the rest of the body shows a
clear trend, that is not in line with the stated policy of shooting below the
waist – since the number of protesters who have that particular type of injury
seems relatively small.
The
case of the ATM guard who was killed and whose body was hit by more than 300
pellets shows that he was shot at short range (a few metres) and with – as indicated
above in Peerzada Ashiq’s report – ‘with the intention to kill.’
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