In 2016, after the paramilitary forces had gunned down commander of the militant outfit Hizbul Mujahidin, Burhan Muzaffar Wani, this led to widespread protests in the entire Kashmir valley, which authorities tried to control using pellet guns to disperse the protesting crowds. Since then, it has become a singular pattern in law enforcement that for every deliberation and protest, pellets are fired. 

The use of pellets has attracted a considerable amount of backlash and exploration, claiming it to be in clear violation of the Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, UNHR; United Nations Human Rights Guidance on Less Lethal Weapons in Law Enforcement; Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons (Protocol III); and International Covenant on Civil and Political rights (hereinafter “ICCPR”). In this article, the author looks beyond the enigma that dominates the global headlines and focuses on the hundreds of pellets that pierce the face and body of almost every other individual in Kashmir. 

Epidemic of Dead Eyes: International Law Standpoint

In 2016, a Public Interest Litigation case was filed by the High Court Bar Association in Jammu & Kashmir on the use of pellets, which was dismissed on the basis of insufficient research. The decision termed pellets as “non-lethal” owing to their low morbidity rate, ignoring the consequences of blindness.  

The United Nations basic principle on the use of force and firearms prohibits the use of inherently dangerous and life-threatening weapons that pose consequences that go beyond death, including fatal injuries such as blindness and physical impairment because of the tendency of pellets to pierce into different parts of the body. ICCPR states, “Firearms are not an appropriate tool for policing of assemblies” and should not be used to disperse the demonstrators. It further violates Article 6 of the ICCPR, which provides for a dignified life, free from all forms of torture and inhuman treatment. In the Nuclear weapons case, the ICJ stated that the use of lethal weapons should be banned as they are against the cardinal principles of International Human rights law and come under the ambit of crimes against humanity.  

The use of force must comply with the standards laid down in the domestic and international laws and should be carried out in order to achieve a legitimate law enforcement objective; therefore, it becomes imperative that sufficient measures are put in place to hold law enforcement officials accountable for using force in excess. 

Even though the Kashmir issue has not been accepted to be a situation of armed conflict, the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia in the Tadic matter stated that the international human rights law and the laws of the armed conflict do not exist in separate silos. As noted by the tribunal, “elementary considerations of humanity and common sense” mandated that “what is inhumane, and consequently proscribed, in international wars, cannot but be inhumane and inadmissible in civil strife”. 

Impact of Pellets on the People of Kashmir: Violation of Basic Human rights

The impact of pellets can never be measured in terms of the morbidity rate, and rightly so. Pellets have the capability of inflicting potentially fatal injuries on the people and with their continuous use; the law enforcement agencies have crippled the entire state as far as the Medical Infrastructure is concerned. The pressure on health care professionals was tremendous as they were attending to the overwhelming number of pellet victims each day that were brought in emergency situations. In 2016, more than 80 people lost their lives and close to 10,000 people were injured due to pellets.   

Furthermore, in order to minimize death and suffering, access to healthcare is an inalienable right both under domestic and international laws. Article 6  of the Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials provides for the duty on the law enforcement agencies to “take immediate action to secure medical attention” but the same has not been adhered to. At times, the CRPF personnel’s and the local police have opened fire on ambulances and abused the medical practitioners who have come forward to help the pellet victims.  

The material structure of pellets is also very significant when addressing the extent of their damage to Human Rights. Crowd control weapons have unpredictable trajectories and can hit a bystander in the eye and parts of the head, therefore its use in no way can be justified. For a 2-year-old Hiba, she has seen it all: Unaware of the cause of conflict, indiscriminately fired pellets hit her right eye, causing partial vision loss. The first emotion that she will ever experience will be that of pain and agony. Her little self cannot do away with the pain of the surgical knife, the cloaking of the surgical instruments and the uncertain future that lies ahead of her. She will always wear the scars of the conflict on her face like her fellow victims. 

According to the Omega Research Foundation (ORF), “the spread pattern of pellets is so inaccurate that even if it is fired below the knee level, it spreads to all parts of the body and makes it difficult for a surgeon to locate”. Therefore, no modification whatsoever could make the use of pellets comply with the International human rights laws and standards. 

Conclusion

Pellets are still being used as a form of crowd control by law enforcement agencies. During a Shia Muslim procession in August, paramilitary forces fired pellets after marchers carried out a religious procession. The reason as to why the use of pellets is not covered by media houses any more might be the decline in its use, compared with its sheer magnitude in 2016. However, this does not mean it is not been used anymore, and of course, it is still a flagrant source of human rights violations that needs to be addressed urgently. To sum up the above discussions, the author argues that two important factors need to be considered for this undertaking, namely, the legality of the pellet guns and the cascading effect it has on the population. When these two factors are looked at in tandem, it becomes imperative that the use of pellets on unarmed civilian population should be prohibited with immediate effect, as it constitutes an undeniable transgression of human rights. 

Bibliography 

1. Stautes

1. Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, UNHR  

1. United Nations Human Rights Guidance on Less Lethal Weapons in Law Enforcement 
2. Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons (Protocol III)
3. International Covenant on Civil and Political rights 

1. ICCPR – General Comment no. 37 – Translating the Right to Protest in Turbulent Times 

1. Cases 

1. J&K High Court Bar Association vs Union of India & Ors. 

1. William Meyers v. Baltimore County, Maryland 713 F.3d 723 (4th Cir. 2013), 11-2192 

1. Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, Advisory Opinion, ICJ GL No 95, [1996] ICJ Rep 226, ICGJ 205 (ICJ 1996), 8th July 1996 

1. The Prosecutor of International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia v. Dusko Tadic, IT-94-1-T.  

1. Reports/Study Conducted 

1. Psychiatric Morbidity in Pellet Injury Victims of the Kashmir Valley, conducted by the Department of Psychiatry, GMC. Srinagar & Geneva – based Sans Frontieres (MSF). 

1. DHNS, The History of Pellet Guns, 05 Aug. 2018, Deccan Herald  

1. Mudasir Ahmad, 19 – Month old Heeba is the youngest victim of Kashmir’s Pellet Horror , 26th Nov., 2018, THE WIRE. 

1. The Omega Research Foundation (ORF), an independent organization based out of UK that monitors military equipment and provides evidence-based research on the manufacture, trade in, and use of, military, security and police (MSP) technologies.   

1. Dr. Rohini Haar & Vincent Locapino, Lethal in Disguise –The Health Consequences of Crowd-Control Weapons, 01 March, 2016, Physicians for Human Rights. 

1. India Stop Using Pellet-Firing shotguns in Kashmir, 04 Sep., 2020, Human Rights Watch.