Baton charge

A baton charge is a way of dispersing crowds of people, usually used by police or military in response to public disorder. In South Asia, a long bamboo stick, called lathi in Hindi and Urdu, is used for crowd control, and its called a lathi charge.

The tactic involves police officers charging at a crowd of people with batons and sometimes, riot shields. They run at the crowd hitting people with their batons, and in some situations use riot shields to push them away. Baton charging is designed to cause pain or fear of pain, in the hope that people would move away from the scene.