A Supreme Court lawyer on Thursday served a legal notice on the government to stop using pepper spray on people within 24 hours.
Advocate Ekhlas Uddin Bhuyian sent the notice by registered post to the Home Minister, Home Secretary, Inspector General of Police (IGP) and Director General of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).
Bhuiyan told bdnews24.com that the government was asked in the notice to stop in 24 hours the cruel use of poisonous and harmful spray by the law-enforcing agencies.
He also stated that he would file a writ petition in public interest if the government does not comply with the notice.
“It has been observed over the past few days that pepper spray that is harmful to human health is being applied in the anti-government rallies, even on the professional teachers as a weapon of sorts. As a result, the victims are showing symptoms of different diseases including corneal diseases.”
The lawyer mentioned in the notice that Los Angeles Times has cited 61 incidents of death due to the use of pepper spray in USA between 1990 and 1995.
The US Army concluded in a 1993 Aberdeen Proving Ground study that pepper spray could cause “mutagenic effects, carcinogenic effects, sensitization, cardiovascular and pulmonary toxicity, neurotoxicity, as well as possible human fatalities”.
The lawyer said that the Constitution allows people to peacefully protest and lead a normal life.
The government recently imported chloropicrin-enriched pepper spray to limit the use of lethal weapons to control street agitations.
On Wednesday, several pro-strike activists were injured in the eye as police used pepper spray to disperse them during the countrywide half-day shutdown enforced by the Left-leaning parties protesting the recent fuel price hike.
Police first used pepper spray on Dec 10 to scatter hundreds of teachers and employees of non-government educational institutions who have long been demanding enlistment of their institutions for the monthly pay order (MPO) facility.
Many saw the police action—using pepper spray and water cannon—on the impoverished teachers and pro-shutdown pickets as ‘excesses’. The use of this type of teargas also sparked bitter criticism in different quarters and on social networking sites.
In the wake of allegations that an MPO-seeking teacher died days after he was pepper-sprayed by police in Dhaka, Home Minister Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir claimed on Wednesday that there was no risk of death from pepper spray.
The pepper spray is also known as OC (oleoresin capsicum) spray or OC gas and capsicum spray in other countries. The spray contains chemical gases that cause intense eye irritation.
A report of North Carolina Medical Journal says the spray is made from water, alcohol, carbon dioxide and halogenated hydrocarbon (freyon, tetrachlorothylene, methylenene chloride).
The report said pepper spray might lead to death hampering the respiration process.
In the 1980s, police force of Caribbean Netherlands used pepper spray against anti-austerity protesters in some islands.
Source: Bd news24
