Editorial
The use of sprays in hartal
A dreadful practice
Left parties' six-hour hartal on Wednesday should have passed peacefully without incident. Given it was a short duration shutdown and the leftists are not of the kind to be resorting to highhanded tactics one would have expected a smooth passage of the programme. But that was not to be.
Although we regard hartal as an imposition and are generally not supportive of it, but the way it has been handled by the law enforcers leaves one in a state of shock looking at the emerging new dimension of crowd control. It was with reckless abandon that pepper sprays and teargas shells were used to disperse crowd. Police also splashed red and pink water from water canons.
A victim has graphically described the debilitating effect of sprays on her body: burning sensation, spreading from eyes to ears, nose, throat and whole body. Parts of her face was burning even after ten hours of the incident. We have the view of a specialist on this. He says that a high probability of the cornea being damaged cannot be ruled out even perhaps leading to blindness. The anguish of a trauma like this should have been avoided.
What is particularly noteworthy is the home minister's statement that 'these were used in the past and will be used in future'.
Recently, teachers' agitation was met with similar highhanded measures. It appears to us that an aggressive preemption of public gathering is becoming the order of the day. It can't bode well for democracy. Furthermore, the reckless use of sprays in the name of crowd control is reprehensible because it emphasises use of force over persuasive methods of crowd handling.
Little wonder, a Supreme Court lawyer has served a notice on the government to take steps within 24 hours to stop the use of pepper spray.
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