Guest Post: Indiscriminate by Design - Case against Pellet Guns

(This is a guest post by Rudraksh Lakra)

Pellet guns entered the conversation around Indian protest policing in July, when the Rapid Action Force used them against demonstrators at the Cockroach Janta Party (“CJP”) march in Delhi. This is not new territory; security forces have deployed pellet-firing shotguns against protesters in Jammu and Kashmir since the early 2010s.

While hearing petitions concerning the violence during the CJP protest, the Supreme Court observed that pellet guns may be used in exceptional circumstances. This approach mirrors the Court's response in 2017 when it considered the excessive use of pellet guns in Jammu and Kashmir. The Court observed that pellet gun deployment ought to require proper application of mind by the authorities.        

I find this approach deeply unsatisfactory. In 2017, the Court did not seriously examine whether pellet guns were themselves constitutionally permissible. In 2026, even at the stage of interim relief, the Court observed that pellet guns may be used in exceptional circumstances, nudging against a constitutional challenge to the weapon itself. In both instances, the Court chose to regulate the manner in which pellet guns may be deployed rather than asking whether they are compatible with the constitutional guarantees of life and peaceful assembly.

In contrast, I argue that the use of pellet guns for policing protests fails the proportionality test because they are inherently indiscriminate and excessive by design. Unlike conventional ammunition that discharges a single projectile, pellet cartridges release dozens or even hundreds of metal pellets in India that spread over a widening area immediately after being fired. Once fired, each pellet travels independently, making it impossible to confine the force to a particular individual. The foreseeable area of impact extends beyond the intended target, exposing nearby protesters, journalists, bystanders, and even persons attempting to leave the assembly to serious injury. 

The resulting injuries are determined more by the mechanics of the ammunition than the decision to pull the trigger. This matters because it moves the inquiry away from the conduct of the individual officer. An officer who exercises restraint, aims carefully, and fires in line with official instructions still cannot control where each pellet lands once it leaves the barrel. The risk of striking unintended persons is built into the weapon rather than caused by poor implementation. Procedural safeguards can govern the decision to fire, but they have no bearing on the trajectory of a pellet after it has been discharged. 

The severity of injuries caused by pellet guns further demonstrates why they are unsuitable for policing assemblies. Metal pellets penetrate soft tissue and frequently strike highly vulnerable parts of the body, particularly the face and eyes. Victims can suffer permanent blindness, retinal detachment, ruptured eyeballs, facial fractures, internal bleeding, nerve damage, lung injuries, and abdominal trauma (see here, and here). In Jammu and Kashmir, between 2015 and 2017, pellet guns were responsible for the deaths of at least 17 people. The Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti, informed the Legislative Assembly that between July 2016 and February 2017 alone, 6,221 persons sustained pellet injuries, including 782 eye injuries. More than 1,000 Kashmiris have suffered partial or complete loss of vision since pellet guns were introduced in 2010.

This is also why leading human rights organisations have consistently concluded that pellet guns are unsuitable for policing assemblies. Physicians for Human Rights and the International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations concluded that pellet rounds disperse multiple projectiles across a broad area, making accurate targeting impossible. For this reason, they recommend that kinetic impact projectiles firing multiple pellets should be prohibited during protests. The Omega Research Foundation similarly explains that the spread pattern of pellets is inherently inaccurate and that the pellets can lodge in multiple parts of the body, making medical treatment significantly more difficult.

The United Nations guidance on less lethal weapons in law enforcement notes that weapons firing multiple projectiles generally cannot comply with the principles of necessity and proportionality, and recommends banning metal pellets, fired from shotguns like in India.  Human Rights Watch also calls upon India to prohibit the use of metal pellet shotguns for crowd control. This inability to distinguish between individuals, and its capacity to inflict serious physical injuries, renders it incompatible with international human rights law. 

Therefore, a constitutional framework founded upon necessity and proportionality cannot accommodate a weapon whose ordinary operation creates a foreseeable risk of striking persons who were never intended to be hit. 

The same conclusion follows from domestic law governing the use of force. Sections 148 to 150 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (“BNSS”), corresponding to Sections 129 to 131 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (“CrPC”), embody a principle of graduated force while dispersing unlawful assemblies. Section 149(3) of the BNSS, corresponding to Section 130(3) of the CrPC, expressly requires that the armed forces use "as little force, and do as little injury to person and property, as may be consistent with dispersing the assembly." In Anita Thakur v. Union of India (2016), the Supreme Court held that force used to disperse an unlawful assembly must remain reasonable and confined to what is necessary to restore order. In Ramlila Maidan Incident v. Home Secretary (2012), the Court recognised that excessive force by the police, including disproportionate use of tear gas, and noted that these actions had “an element of criminality”. A weapon that is inherently indiscriminate, and excessive sits uneasily within a statutory scheme built around a graded, minimal, reasonable, and proportionate response.

For these reasons, I believe the Supreme Court's protocol and safety-based approach to pellet guns addresses a symptom rather than the underlying problem. A weapon whose ordinary operation predictably disperses uncontrollable projectiles cannot be rendered proportionate through better training, stricter authorisation or revised operational guidelines. The documented experience of Kashmir demonstrates that the harms associated with pellet guns are systemic rather than accidental. The constitutional guarantees of life and assembly therefore require a categorical prohibition on the use of pellet guns in protest policing.