Under certain circumstances, the first volley of tear gas fired can serve as a warning to protesters, in place of the more common verbal warning, a police inspector said today.

"It can be used as a warning, at least in the situation I was in," Insp Shahrizal Dul Manap told the Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) inquiry panel into alleged human rights abuses during and after the Bersih 3.0 rally on April 28.

He was responding to a question from Jamaluddin Abdul Rahman, who is representing the police, at the public inquiry, which is into its 15th day.

However Shahrizal, the 32nd witness to be called, clarified that firing the first volley of tear gas as a warning was not a common practice and that it only applied in certain situations.

He was describing how the 48-man public order riot squad Poru 21 under his command had to fire tear gas on the protesters after they surged and swamped the barricades at the Dataran Merdeka during the pro-electoral reform rally.

All told he said that Poru 21, which was drawn from General Operations Force (GOF) personnel, fired 55 rounds of tear gas at the crowd as they pushed from the Dataran Merdeka to Jalan Tun Perak and up to Masjid Jamek.

'Crowd attacked water cannon'

The next witness who took the stand after Shahrizal said the protesters attacked a stranded FRU water cannon truck on Jalan Tun Perak.

NONE Inspector Ambri Mat Nayan, the commander of Poru 15, said the water cannon was engaged in running action against a 10,000-strong crowd of protesters became stranded on the road and could not move or fire its primary crowd dispersal weapon.

Seeing "an opportunity to get back at the water cannon that had fired on them just recently", Ambri said, the crowd surged forward and began to "attack" the vehicle by throwing stones, rocks, wood, bottles, plastic chairs and insults.

Ordered to intervene, he then told his men to unleash volleys of tear gas cannisters into the crowd and then threw dozens of tear gas grenades when the protesters got too close a few times.

Ambri said his action was successful in preventing any untoward incident.

The water cannon then became operational again and it was turned back towards the main police staging area at Dataran Merdeka, with his unit following suit soon after, when other units were called in to replace them.

More than 100,000 people gathered to protest in the Bersih 3.0 rally against what has been described as blatant fraud and irregularities in the electoral system, leading to one of the most massive gatherings to flood the federal capital in recent times.

The April 28 rally also led to one of the most chaotic scenes in Kuala Lumpur, which saw some of the sternest action yet being taken by the police to disperse crowds.

Cop unaware of constitutional right to assembly