The purported use of pellet-firing shotguns during a student protest in Delhi on July 20 against alleged irregularities in the NEET-UG 2026 examination has once again put one of the most contentious crowd-control tools under scrutiny. According to a report by The Hindu, at least ten people were reported to have sustained pellet injuries, as per right to information (RTI) data obtained from two hospitals in the national capital.News reports indicated that Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel fired an Anti-Riot Gun (ARG) – in the same category as a pellet gun – twice during the march. The matter reached the Supreme Court through a petition filed by a former IPS officer and two individuals who alleged pellet-gun injuries during the protest, seeking restrictions on, or an outright ban on, the use of such projectiles to disperse civilian assemblies. The court has directed the Delhi government to ensure adequate medical care for the injured petitioners and other similarly placed persons. It also indicated that it would lay down a protocol governing the use of pellet guns by law enforcement agencies. The matter remains pending, making it important to distinguish between allegations, reported facts and judicial findings.This essay is not about that particular incident or the legal arguments before the court. It does, however, raise a broader question: what does public health evidence indicate about the use of pellet guns as a tool to maintain public order? What the law already demands of the stateIndian law does not treat protest as a license for disorder nor policing as a license for unlimited force. The constitution protects the right to assemble peacefully and without arms under Article 19(1)(b), while permitting reasonable restrictions in the interests of public order under Article 19(3). The Ministry of Home Affairs’ 1985 Code of Conduct for the Police in India directs officers to rely, as far as practicable, on persuasion, advice and warning and to only use “the irreducible minimum of force required in the circumstances,” once force becomes unavoidable.This domestic standard closely parallels the international framework set out in the United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials (1990), which requires law enforcement officials, as far as possible, to use non-violent means before resorting to force and, where force is unavoidable, to exercise restraint, act proportionately, minimise damage and injury and respect and preserve human life. The UN Human Rights Guidance on Less-Lethal Weapons in Law Enforcement (OHCHR, 2019) stresses that kinetic impact projectiles should be used only within strict safeguards and in ways that minimise injury. The question is whether pellet-firing shotguns can, in practice, be used consistently with these requirements of necessity, restraint, proportionality and minimisation of harm. Medical evidence on the bodily effects of pellet guns, including permanent injury, disability and psychological trauma, is critical to this assessment. From a public-health and medical-ethics perspective, the foreseeable and difficult-to-control harms associated with pellet guns raise a fundamental concern – whether their use is consistent with the obligation to prevent avoidable harm.Pellet guns and the ‘less-lethal’ labelThe terminology used to describe these weapons can obfuscate their consequences rather than clarify them. Pellet guns, which are typically 12-gauge shotguns that fire cartridges containing numerous pellets, are characterised by the Government of India as ‘non-lethal weapons’ and treated as ‘less-lethal’ weapons. Other ‘less-lethal’ weapons used for crowd management include water cannons and tear gas. However, the label does not mean their use is harmless or necessarily free from serious injury. International literature on ‘less-lethal’ weapons similarly recognises that the term does not imply an absence of injury or death.Medical literature has documented that, when fired at close range, pellets can travel in a compact group at high velocity and cause severe damage to bone and tissue. Operating guidance for pellet guns reportedly recommends firing from more than 50 metres away and aiming at the lower body, to minimise injury. An essay in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics notes that pellet guns used in the Kashmir context were generally understood to have an effective range of around 45 metres and if fired from a closer range, pellets may disperse unpredictably and strike parts of the body other than those intended.Forensic research has also shown that pellet dispersion varies with firing distance, shotgun choke and pellet type, making the injury pattern dependent on the specific weapon and ammunition used. Range is therefore not a predictor for eliminating the risk of serious injury. Pellet guns have been associated with serious injuries, permanent disability and death. Inaccurate aim, overuse and the perception of their harmlessness stemming from their ‘non-lethal’ or ‘less-lethal’ designation can compound their destructive effects.Also read: Kashmir’s Pellet Survivors Describe What Happens After the Pellets Stop FlyingEven with careful aim, evidence doesn’t support a ‘safe’ part of the body for a pellet cluster to strike. A pellet entering the abdomen can damage internal organs or blood vessels and an injury that initially appears minor may require surgery or prolonged rehabilitation. Clinical literature describes pellet injury not as a surface wound but as penetrating trauma, with severity depending on the anatomical structures encountered. A prospective study of 400 pellet-injury patients in Kashmir found that 67.1% had injuries to the eyes and face; 69 had abdominal wounds, all with pellets visible on CT scan; 48 had pellets that had reached the gut; and 40 needed a laparotomy. Operative findings included bowel perforation, serosal breaches and mesenteric or gastrocolic haematomas. The findings demonstrate that impacts to the torso can result in significant internal injury and surgical intervention, even when the head and eyes are not involved.Eye data tells a similar story. In a case series of 777 patients treated for pellet-related eye injuries at a Srinagar hospital over four months in 2016, 76.3% of injured eyes sustained an open-globe injury. Emergency surgery was required in a large proportion of cases, and among the eyes for which final visual acuity was recorded, 82.4% had a visual acuity of counting fingers or worse after treatment. What happens once a pellet enters tissue depends on what it encounters, not on where the shooter aimed.Evidence on kinetic impact projectiles in crowd management more broadly points in the same direction. A systematic review in BMJ Open examined deaths, injuries and permanent disabilities from rubber and plastic bullets, shot pellets and similar projectiles across 1,984 people between 1990 and 2017: 53 died, 300 suffered permanent disabilities and 71% of survivors’ injuries were classified as severe. The authors questioned their appropriateness for crowd control given their inherent inaccuracy and potential for severe injury, disability and death. Although this review covers a broader class of kinetic impact projectiles rather than pellet guns alone, it provides relevant evidence about the health consequences of projectile-based crowd control.A qualitative study in Cogent Mental Health, examining 10 pellet-gun victims in Kashmir, found psychological trauma, disrupted daily life, changes in self-identity, difficulties affecting education and economic hardship, particularly in the context of vision loss. Similarly, a 2020 study in the Journal of Traumatic Stress found that pellet-gun victims experienced post-traumatic distress and post-traumatic growth, with the relationship between the two varying according to the time since trauma. Together, these findings suggest that the consequences of pellet injuries can extend beyond the physical injury itself, affecting psychological wellbeing, education, work, daily life and household finances.Also read: The Ethical Distaste and Legal Jumprope of Using (Expired) Tear Gas In a ‘Democracy’A person may survive a pellet injury without a formal disability classification and still experience chronic pain, repeated medical treatment, psychological distress, disruption to education or work and the financial costs associated with care and rehabilitation. The injury cannot be understood by examining the wound alone. A public health analysis reveals that the distinction between ‘lethal’ and ‘non-lethal,’ or between ‘upper body’ and ‘lower body,’ is inadequate and obscures the real harms of pellet guns, which cause unpredictable and irreversible injury. The relevant question is whether the continued use of a weapon that can cause serious, sometimes permanent, injury is supported by a transparent, evidence-based assessment of its necessity, effectiveness, risks and available alternatives. The gap between safeguards and evidenceThe government has maintained that pellet guns are a ‘last resort,’ with parliamentary replies describing a sequence in which PAVA-chilli shells, STUN-LAC shells and grenades and tear-smoke shells are used to disperse “violent protesters before the use of pellet guns.” The government has also acknowledged that an expert committee was constituted in 2016 to explore alternatives to pellet guns and that its recommendations were subsequently taken into account for implementation. Yet, the institutional basis for continuing to use pellet guns remains difficult to reconcile with the evidence of harm. The Bureau of Police Research and Development’s (BPRD) 2011 Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) on non-lethal measures for public agitations did not list pellet guns among the crowd-control equipment it recommended. Instead, it listed alternatives such as water cannons, tear-smoke shells, tasers, net guns and plastic bullets. The World Medical Association, of which the Indian Medical Association is a member, recognises that the inappropriate use of riot control agents risks the lives of those targeted and exposes people around them and has recommended that states refrain from using riot control agents because of the significant risks to health and life. Public order and the protection of lifeThis does not dismiss the risks and injuries security personnel may face in these situations and the state has a legitimate responsibility to protect them while maintaining public order. That responsibility, however, does not make every measure for crowd management equally necessary or proportionate. While police and security personnel have access to protective equipment, training, de-escalation techniques and other crowd management measures, civilians present, by contrast, lack equivalent means of protection against projectiles. This difference in protective capacity places a particular responsibility on the state to avoid exposing civilians to foreseeable and avoidable harm. Also read: Heated Exchange at Parliamentary Panel Meeting as Opposition Raises Pellet Guns, BJP Invokes 1984 RiotsThe debate over pellet guns is often framed as a choice between order and disorder or between lethal and less-lethal weapons. From a public health perspective, the more pressing question is whether a weapon like a pellet gun that carries a foreseeable risk of severe and potentially irreversible injury can be considered an acceptable means of managing public assemblies when less harmful alternatives exist. The documented risk of permanent injury, psychological harm, disability and loss of bodily integrity weighs strongly against treating pellet guns as a tool for managing public assemblies. Even where state intervention is necessary to maintain public order, that intervention is not unconditional. The state has an obligation to choose methods that minimise the foreseeable risk of permanent harm – a threshold that pellet guns, by their design, cannot meet. Public order and the protection of health and bodily integrity should not be treated as competing objectives; responsible measures for managing public assemblies must seek both. Sarojini Nadimpally, Amar Jesani, Gargi Mishra, Anand Zachariah and Yogesh Jain work in public health, medicine and bioethics, medical education, community medicine and rural health, law & health policy, and the humanities & social sciences.