Source: Hueiyen News Service / Agency
New Delhi, September 28 2009:
Lethal grenade from every day Indian scientists has turned the everyday chilly into a 'lethal' grenade.
Indian scientists have turned the everyday chilly into a 'lethal' grenade.
Tezpur (Assam) based Defence research laboratory, has zeroed in on the local variety of hot chilly, known as the Naga chilly and Bhoot Jolokiya.
It is exported to the United States too where it is the foodies favourite.
After extensive research the scientists have established that the Naga chilly powder can drive away animals.
From here it was a short hop to make the grenade.
Along with plastic bullets, the chilly grenade can prove very effective in crowd management and reduce chances of causalities, which are normal in any police operation in urban centres.
The biggest advantage of the chilly grenade would be its non-lethal nature, scientists of the defence lab are quoted as saying in local reports.
Whether it is controlling mob violence or flushing out extremists out of their hideouts, the chilly grenade will come in handy without posing a physical danger to the targets, the scientists said.
Now the Tezpur defence scientists and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) are working on developing a powder from the chilly that could be coated on fences and ropes to scare away wild elephants who create havoc in India's northeast.
Even the strong pungent from burning chilly powder is found to keep elephants at bay.
Impressed by scientific research on Naga chilly variety, the Assam government has decided to encourage cultivation of the Naga chilly.
It has identified some 300 hectares in Golaghat and Baksa districts for cultivating this chilly.