SRINAGAR: The Jammu and Kashmir High Court has dismissed petitions seeking a ban on the use of pepper gas and pellet guns against protestors.
The Public Interest Litigations, filed by a separatist leader besides others, were dismissed by the HC’s Division Bench comprising Chief Justice M.M. Kumar and Justice Ali Mohammad Magray.
The weapons are claimed to be non-lethal by the police and paramilitaries, but have claimed many lives prompting human rights activists, separatists and ordinary people to ask for a ban.
The weapons were also reported to be raising health concerns.
But the authorities, respondents in the case, had told the Court that the petitions “do not serve any public interest, but seem to be an attempt…to gain publicity over a very sensitive issue”.
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They said the police and paramilitaries used the weapons in question to ensure minimum loss of life and damage to the property.
They said the weapons were internationally accepted non-lethal means of controlling unruly mobs to restore law and order.
The government told the court that stone pelters use catapults and petrol bombs to attack the security forces giving them the least chance to disperse those unruly mobs by means of lathi charge (batons).
