Sources reveal that the police have always been short of standard riot control gear. “Then there is the problem of mindset as well. The continuous fight with militants has completely changed the attitude of the police. They have become more of like the army,” a senior police officer said.

“Because the emphasis was on fighting insurgency, where nothing but firearms were used, over the years, the J-K Police have forgotten the basics of normal law enforcement. It’s unfortunate, but true,” he added.

The police department admits that the current protests in the Valley have caught the top brass off guard. “Our men are used to carrying sophisticated weapons and the situations have been such that they had to open fire whenever they were attacked. We urgently need a transformation from a military mindset to a police mindset in our men,” a senior officer said. He said the casualties increase because the policemen fire without making a difference between a militant group and a stone-pelting mob.

In fact, the doctors in Kashmir’s premier SHMHS hospital, too, point out this strange phenomenon. “More than 90 per cent wounded people, who were brought to the emergency (during the current protests), had received bullet injures above the waist,” Dr Saleem Iqbal of SMHS told The Indian Express. “This is alarming,” he added.

The first step towards changing the approach was to look for a standard riot gear. Initially, the police used old tear smoke shells, which were dumped in their stores ever since militancy erupted in the Valley in 1990. “We would normally get 3,000 shells every year as our quota. We never demanded more because we didn’t need them. These annual consignments were lying in our stores,” an officer said. “Apart from Srinagar, where the police occasionally used tear smoke shells to stop protests, there was hardly any such need anywhere else. And once these protests started, we were short of fresh material. Initially, we used whatever we had, including the expired stock.”

Sources said the police needed riot control guns which fire tear smoke shells, the new hand hurled stunt grenades, guns to fire rubber pellets and more importantly lathis and shields. When the state police approached the Border Security Force’s factory in Takenpur (the only factory producing tear smoke shells, rubber pellets and other riot-control arms), it was shut for two months. The demand was met when the Union Home Ministry intervened and arranged the material from the Delhi Government. Sources say additional consignments were borrowed from Rajasthan as well.

“The rubber bullets can also prove fatal if hit above waist. We have issued clear direction to use the rubber bullets in extreme circumstances,” a senior officer said.