Six days after the July 20 crackdown near Parliament, neither the CRPF nor its Rapid Action Force wing has clarified whether their personnel fired pellet guns at protesters. As of publication, the force has neither publicly confirmed nor denied their use, even as The Indian Express reported that an internal inquiry found that seven rounds were fired from a pellet gun.

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear two petitions alleging police excesses as the Delhi Police faces questions over its response to the protest march called by the Cockroach Janta Party. But the force at the centre of the pellet injury allegations is the RAF – a CRPF wing trained in riot control, crowd management, negotiation and the use of less-lethal and minimum force. Its official motto is “Serving Humanity With Sensitive Policing”.

An RAF official deployed at Jantar Mantar, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said its personnel follow a “graded response” to control a “violent crowd”. “We first use lathis, then tear gas, followed by pellet guns if required,” he told Newslaundry. On the 12-bore pump-action shotgun, used to fire pellets, he said: “We do not use a 12-bore pump-action gun on our own. If the situation warrants its use, an executive magistrate who is present at the spot authorises its usage. We never fire pellets without such authorisation.”

Set against the motto, that account and the force’s own guidelines are two things.

The first is a video from that afternoon, one of many circulating since, in which a man in the blue camouflage of the RAF can be seen firing a 12-bore pump-action shotgun outside the Pind Balluchi restaurant at the Regal cinema complex in Connaught Place.

The second is the pattern of injuries. At least four people suffered pellet-like injuries on July 20, and in every case Newslaundry reviewed, the wounds were above the waist – eyes, face, neck, shoulders, chest, arms and back. A 19-year-old student may permanently lose vision in his right eye. A 25-year-old still has a pellet lodged near a major blood vessel in his neck, too close to remove. A reporter is carrying an estimated 25 to 30 of them in his body.

Now consider the force’s own rulebook. The Ministry of Home Affairs' 2011 Standard Operating Procedures for handling public agitations with non-lethal measures state that where such fire is required, the line of fire should be kept below the waist to reduce fatalities. It was the same logic that led the CRPF to fit its pellet guns with muzzle deflectors in 2017, an attachment designed to push the spread downward, and to instruct personnel to aim low. Whatever was authorised on July 20, and by whom, the wounds it left were not where the protocol says they should have been.

Media reports indicate the RAF chief has told its personnel that the force gradient for crowd control was not adopted in accordance with the RAF training and standards on July 20 – the force is examining the matter.

So what follows is an account of the four cases, the graded-force protocol the RAF says it follows, and a decade in which the Union government has repeatedly promised alternatives to the pellet gun without ever retiring it.

Shaikh Irshad Mansoori  

Location: Near Palika Bazar

Shaikh Irshad Mansoori, a 25-year-old resident of Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, who works at a private firm in Gurugram, was among the first protesters reported to have sustained pellet injuries during the July 20 march. He was injured near Palika Bazar and admitted to Lady Hardinge Medical College, where doctors operated on July 21 to remove multiple pellets lodged in his face. 

According to Mansoori, the projectile struck his left eyebrow and shattered, sending fragments into different parts of his face. He said........

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