Most humans reach their pain threshold within
three seconds, and none could withstand longer than five seconds. "For the
first millisecond, it just felt like the skin was warming up. Then it got
warmer and warmer and you felt like it was on fire ... As soon as you're away
from that beam your skin returns to normal and there is no pain"
China has developed a long range and non-lethal
'pain beam' to disperse crowds. When the long-range beam hits a
person, it heats water molecules just below skin, causing intense pain. It is
a weapon that can be used to break up riots or
protests from a distance. The Poly WB-1, uses a millimeter-wave beam that can
travel distances of up to one kilometer. When the beam reaches a person, it heats
water molecules just below the skin, causing intense pain. While a short burst
with the pain beam causes intense pain, longer bursts at certain frequencies
can also cause the flesh to burn and blister.
Riot control
systems the world over.
In riot control “safety first” is the gold rule.
That is why early systems are preferred world over.
Water Cannon: Water cannon are a device that shoots a
high-velocity stream of water. Typically, water cannon can deliver a large
volume of water, often over dozens of meters. Water cannons were first devised
for use on fireboats. Extinguishing fires on boats and buildings near the water
was much more difficult and dangerous before fireboats were invented. The first
fireboat in New York City was Marine 1, deployed 1 February 1891.
The first truck-mounted water cannon were used
for riot control in Germany in the beginning of the 1930s. Truck-based water
cannon were used widely in the United States during the 1960s for riot control.
Water cannons designed for riot control are still made in the United States and
the United Kingdom, but most products are exported, particularly to Africa and
parts of Asia.
Water cannon are still in use on a large scale in
Turkey, Chile, Germany, Northern Ireland, Belgium and other parts of Europe.
The annual riots on 1 May in Berlin, the Schanzenfest fair in Hamburg, which
regularly ends in riots, or other demonstrations, are usually accompanied by
water cannon, which support riot police. German communities use their water
cannon in hot summers to water public parks. The Turkish police water cannon
TOMA has been used against protestors many times, including the 2013 protests
in Turkey.
TOMA
is Toplumsal Olaylara Müdahale Aracı a Turkish word which means Vehicle
to Social Events, is an armored water cannon designed for riot control from a
Turkish company, Nurol Makina. It is used by the Turkish National Police and Turkish
Gendarmerie, and has been exported to countries. TOMA can be integrated on to
different type of chassis and can reach up to 100 km/h maximum speed. The
critical sub-systems of the TOMA vehicles are also protected against ballistic
threat.
LRAD: The Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), also
known as sound cannon, is an acoustic hailing device and sonic weapon developed
by LRAD Corporation to send messages, warnings, and harmful, pain-inducing
tones over longer distances than normal loudspeakers. LRAD systems have been
used to counter piracy, as non-lethal crowd control weapons, and as
communication devices. The parameter "ka", which is the wave number
multiplied by the speaker radius, is often used to characterize sound source
directivity
For this
source, ka=19 at 2.5 kHz, and according to the LRAD data sheet, the beam angle
of about 30 degrees total is precisely what is predicted for a regular
loudspeaker. LRAD is extremely painful, and that it was designed for use in
short bursts at 300 metres (980 ft), to give targeted people a headache. He
said that "you definitely don't want to be" within 100 m; and, that
the device will cause permanent auditory damage.
On November 5, 2005, the luxury cruise ship
Seabourn Spirit employed an LRAD while repelling pirates who attacked the
vessel with rocket-propelled grenades about 115 km off the coast of Somalia. LRAD, was used and the pirates did not succeed
in boarding the vessel and eventually fled.
The US deployed its own nonlethal microwave beam as a
crowd control weapon in Afghanistan. But the device, called the Raytheon Active
Denial System (ADS) was recalled in 2010 without ever
seeing it used. When the beam strikes a person it does the same thing to your
skin, as your microwave oven does to leftovers. On one can withstand the
extraordinary pain but surrender.
Riot control should be human?
Critics
at home and abroad raised serious questions about the ethics of using a pain
beam to break up riots. Generally
non-lethal microwave weapon is a better, safer crowd control alternative than
tear gas. At a time when mobs are raving against the government, attacking
police, pelting stones causing destruction, the police resort to more advanced
methods of crowd control than conventional tear gas shells. Fearing the Taliban’s propaganda that
Americans are zapping Afghans until they feel roasted alive Americans seriously
pondered over the use of Micro wave and finally rescinded. The
first-generation” weapons like water cannons, rubber bullets and pepper spray
has gained a certain acceptance, despite their many drawbacks. Exotic technologies like the Active Denial
System invariably cause public alarm. The government cannot deploy a system that disables
people for the rest of their lives. It should mind the long term consequences
of the technology and the health disasters. Firstly the government
should ensure that its fight is human.
- venkat poolabala
