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| Omar Govt procured 1000 pellet guns for use in Kashmir | | NC shedding crocodile tears | | Early Times Report
Srinagar, Sept 14: Even as the opposition National Conference has been shedding "crocodile" tears over the ongoing use of pellet guns on protesters in Kashmir, it was the previous NC-led government, which spent millions of rupees to procure over 1000 such guns for use in the restive Valley leaving police with no options but use this weapon.
Official sources said on January 24, 2011 the state government (Home Department) accorded sanction of Rs 4.71 crores to the Director General of Police for procurement of Pump Action Guns (Pellet Gun) as a "measure of modernization program."
That time the Home department was headed by the then Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, who despite public outcry over the use of pellet gun gave a go ahead for the procurement of the Crowd-Control Weapons(CCW)s. And, now being out of power he is criticizing the ruling Peoples Democratic Party led coalition for "excessive use of force and use of pellet gun."
Some senior officials said National Conference in general and its acting President Omar Abdullah have no right to condemn the use of pellet guns for it was his government which procured the weaponry in bulk to be used for mob-control. "Presently, this is the available weapon and thus we have no options but to use it," the officials added.
They said had the Omar government invested in other means of crowd control, the same would have been used.
On July 26, union Home Ministry said an expert team, headed by a Joint Secretary in the Ministry, has been constituted to explore possible alternatives to pellet guns, amidst strong criticism against their frequent use in Jammu and Kashmir for crowd control.
Besides Home Ministry Joint Secretary TVSN Prasad, who will head the team, other members of the expert committee are Atul Karwal, IG, CRPF, Srinagar, Rajeev Krishna, IG, BSF, Rajesh Kumar of J&K Police, Tushar Tripathy of Indian Ordnance Factory Board, Manjit Singh of Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory, Chandigarh and Naresh Bhatnagar of IIT, Delhi.
Many youths have been injured as security forces use pellet guns to control violent protesters, which erupted in the wake of killing of Burhan Wani, a top militant of Hizbul Mujahideen on July 8. Since then there has been no let up in protests,
A Home Ministry spokesperson said the expert committee will submit its reportwithin two months.
The Home Minister Rajnath Singh recently said the government was looking at PAVA chilly grenades as alternative to pellet guns. |
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