N.B. Nair
Durgapur, West Bengal (ISJ): An Indian state-funded research institute has come up with an indigenous riot control vehicle to help internal security agencies to take on aggressive mobs.
It might be sheer coincidence, the three prototypes of the riot control vehicle were unveiled at the height of an agitation by farmers against three central farm laws in and around the national capital New Delhi. But the idea about a mob control vehicle emerged three years ago, when such a vehicle was launched by a foreign company, said Dr. Harish Hirani, Director of Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CMERI) in Durgapur, West Bengal under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
“There were discussions at central level to indigenize far better "Mob Control Vehicle(s)", which can be utilized in various situations for effective riot control. Vehicle design should be based on type of mob, nature of riots, city, traffic pattern, geographical locations, riot controlling force,” Dr. Hirani told Indian Science Journal.
Dr. Hirani said, instead of a single heavy vehicle, different sized vehicles (light, medium and heavy) augmenting different capabilities have been designed and developed by CMERI with compactness, lighter weight and ease of manoeuvrability.
The three variants of the riot control vehicles are made to enhance the combat/control capabilities of the controlling forces and provide sufficient protection to the occupants. These vehicles take into account various places such as open space (highway), small valleys, and interior portion of the city to handle large assembly of protesters, who gradually turn into aggressive mob.
The prototypes of these three vehicles were demonstrated to central policing agencies recently near Delhi.
Capabilities of Mob Control Vehicle
Two of these vehicles are equipped with expandable multiple shield system at front to provide shielding to the policemen/ security personals. All three vehicles have built in loud speakers to communicate instruction of the forces to the rioting crowd. Appropriate lighting system is provided for operation at night. Operator can see the images of the situation in front of the shield and rear view through built-in wide angle PZT cameras.
In addition control panel in the dashboard is provided for actuation with real time visual inputs from front/rear cameras. One of the vehicles has provision to utilize the water jet cannons (front and rear), two of vehicles have tear gas launching systems to control the mob. Appropriate arrangement is provided to have clear video as well as audio communication between controlling force and control room.
The heavy category of these riot control vehicle prototype has a 7.5-ton payload capacity, while the medium category is of 2.5-ton and the compact one is a tractor-based vehicle for easy maneuvering.
The other capabilities are cabin pressurization system, retractable multi-barrel tear gas launcher with appropriate electronic vision systems, wide-angle surveillance, multi-channel video transmission system, GPS tracker and, GPS navigator.
The design architecture allows easy and fast customization in downstream products. The production versions of the vehicles can be tailor-made as per the actual requirements and functional priorities of the users so that their effectiveness in mob/riot control scenarios can be augmented.
Source: With inputs from India Science Wire
Image Courtesy: Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CMERI) in Durgapur
