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The recalled canisters will be destroyed, Ordnance and Quartermaster Division commander Pol Maj-General Phuwadon Wuttakanok said yesterday.

"The firing test shows that tear-gas canisters supplied by a Chinese company have problems," he said.

Phuwadon said the tear-gas canisters had been bought in the wake of the Black May incident in 1992, in which police used bullets and guns to control the crowds. The resulting casualties were huge, prompting officials to look for alternative riot-control equipment.

"The government approved the budget to buy tear gas in 1993," Phuwadon said. "The Chinese supplier was chosen because its product was popular back then".

After receiving the tear-gas canisters from China, the Ordnance and Quartermaster Division distributed them to a number of police units.

"No such canisters were left in our depot. So, I didn't know that such a type of tear-gas equipment existed," Phuwadon said.

On October 8, his division conducted a demonstration of tear-gas canisters and the stock did not seem to have the power to blow off people's limbs.

However, many PAD demonstrators had lost fingers, toes, arms and legs when police fired tear gas into them the previous day.

"We then found that in another location there was the other type of tear-gas canister. We therefore collected them for testing. Since seeing that such canisters could injure people, we decided to recall and destroy them," Phuwadon said.