Kashmir violence: Stun grenades join pellet guns to contain protests

SRINAGAR: Dozens of protesters were injured on Monday as security forces fired teargas and pellet guns and also exploded stun grenades to thwart a ‘solidarity’ rally planned by Kashmiri separatists at the main square of southern Anantnag town.

The rally, as had been announced by a recently formed issue-based alliance of key separatist leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik, was to show solidarity with the people of the area as Anantnag with neighbouring districts of Kulgam and Pulwama have been worst hit in the 17-day-old unrest in Kashmir Valley.

More than 50 protesters and two policemen have been killed in violence and most of the fatal civilian casualties occurred in south Kashmir. The turbulence was triggered by the killing of Hizb-ul-Mujahedin militant commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani by security forces’ in Anantnag’s Kokernag area on July 8.

The hospitals in the Valley of Kashmir, the epicentre of the unrest, are overwhelmed and more than one dozen people, mostly young, have lost their vision and about 150 more are threatened with blindness by pellets lodged in their eyes.

Following widespread criticism and political parties and human rights groups at home and abroad calling for complete ban on the use of pellet-guns introduced as ‘non-lethal weapon’ to contain a similar unrest in the Valley in Summer 2010, Home Minister, Rajnath Singh, said he has asked the security forces to refrain from using pellet guns “as much as possible.”

However on Monday, the security forces again allegedly used pellet guns along with stun-grenades, teargas canisters and bamboo sticks to foil about a dozen attempts by huge curfew-defying crowds at different places to march on Anantnag, 55-km south of Srinagar.

In Delhi, CRPF’s Director General, K. Durga Prasad, expressed “regret” for injuries caused to youths due to firing of pellet guns in the Valley and said it would use this “least-lethal” weapon only in “extreme” situations as of now.  He said there was no weapon called “non-lethal” and the use of pellet guns was the “least-lethal” option available with the force.