Talking to the media, he claimed that pepper spray was being used in different countries of the world. The Dhaka city police chief said the use of the spray had no serious impact on human body.
Replying to a query, Ahmed said that no expert opinion was taken in this regard due to lack of expertise on pepper spray in the country.
Home Minister MK Alamgir on Friday said that international conventions approved the use of pepper spray and no body can argue over it.
Supreme Court lawyer Advocate Ekhlas Uddin Bhuyian on Thursday served a legal notice on the government to stop using pepper spray on people within 24 hours.
He 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).
He also stated that he would file a writ petition in public interest if the government does not comply with the notice.
The lawyer mentioned in the notice that the 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 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 that their institutions are enlisted 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 tear gas also sparked bitter criticism in different quarters and on social networking sites.
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 respiration.
In the 1980s, police force of the Caribbean Netherlands used pepper spray against anti-austerity protesters in some islands.bdnews24.com
