Posted: June 26th, 2009 - 1:47pm by Doug Powell

India's security forces are planning to mix one of the world's hottest chilli powders in hand grenades to control riots and during insurgency operations in the remote northeast.

India's defense scientists say they will replace explosives in small hand grenades with a certain variety of red chilli to immobilize a person without killing him.

Scientists said the chilli found in the country's northeast generates so much heat it was enough to startle a person for a while when used as a weapon.

The bhut jolokia chilli is said to generate 1,000,000 heat units on the Scoville scale -- a measure of hotness -- at least a thousand times more than a common kitchen chilli.

The Scoville scale was named after American scientist Wilbur Scoville, the first to measure the heat component in chillies.