Multinational seminar on Non-Lethal Weapons begins

Home Minister Air Vice Marshal (retd) Altaf Hossain Chowdhury inaugurated the seminar as chief guest.

Participants from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives, USA and host Bangladesh attended the seminar, jointly organised by Bangladesh Army and United States Marine Forces Pacific (MARFORPAC), says an ISPR press release.

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The seminar, first of its kind in Bangladesh, is designed to improve the ability of the armed forces of the participating countries to conduct Humanitarian Assistance Disaster Relief (HA/DR) and Peace Keeping Operation (PKO) missions where civil unrest may create a potential force protection issue.

The goal of the seminar is to bring awareness among the participants of the utility of non-lethal weapons and tactics to maintain peace in peacekeeping operation scenarios and in other situations involving civilians.

The seminar has also objective to promote the use of non-lethal weapon system in crowd control operations as well as at seeking new ways to handle unrest in order to prevent or stop human right violations.

Addressing the occasion Home Minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury said the seminar was arranged in an appropriate time when many difficult peacekeeping operations are going on around the globe where many of our officers and soldiers are directly involved.

The employment of non-lethal weapons became more important in internal security duties where the objective was not to kill or destroy but to restrain and disable, he added.

Chief of General Staff Major General SM Ikramul Haque in his welcome address hoped that this seminar would act as a good launching pad for collective learning and cooperation. Commanding General of US Marine Force Pacific Lt. General Wallace Carll Gregson also spoke on the occasion.

US ambassador Harry K Thomas, high military and civil officials were present on the occasion, the release added.