Obituaries of ‘supercop’ KPS Gill are incomplete without the reference to his tenure as the Director General of Police, Punjab during the anti-Khalistan operations. But what did Gill have to say about the alleged police excesses committed by his men?
Ajit Singh Sandhu, one of the 2,000 police officers accused in the operations’ aftermath, committed suicide in 1997 after being hauled up by the Supreme Court. After attending his funeral, Gill broke his silence on what he called a ‘trial by the media’ in a 2,000-word letter to the then Prime Minister IK Gujral.
Here are some excerpts:
Gill Wore his Uniform With Pride
“Yet thousands of men in uniform stood as a bulwark of democracy against the unconstrained depredations of the extremists. Thousands sacrificed their lives. Thousands of others witnessed the murder of their parents, their brothers and sisters, their wives and their children.”
He Stood by his Men Till the Very End
“No thought is given and no provision made for their security. These officers are assaulted in jail, and no visible action is taken against their attackers. The State’s mechanism for investigation and litigation is disproportionately focussed against the police even as many of the terrorist leaders who inspired and participated in some of the most heinous crimes walk free.
Gill Did Not Deny the Possibility of Police Excesses in Punjab
“Wherever such excesses were detected, action was inevitably taken. The real question is whether a strategy of State Terrorism was adopted by the police; and the answer is unequivocally in the negative. The evidence is visible everywhere in the Punjab. The victory over terrorism was not merely a military victory, it was a moral victory. Nowhere in the world has State Terrorism, irrespective of how many people it killed or tortured, ever been able to extinguish an ideology as completely as the idea of Khalistan has been extinguished in Punjab. An idea can never be destroyed by violence. Blood fuels revolution.”
Gill Stood By His Actions
“At first all surrenders took place in my presence and in some cases in the presence of the then Chief Minister. But after a while the deluge became difficult to handle, and SSPs were authorised to accept surrenders. The largest number of surrenders were before SSP AS Sandhu. And yet, he was a “blood thirsty man”!”
He Fearlessly Questioned the Judiciary in Punjab
“What is to be said of judges who failed to consider overwhelming evidence of the most heinous crimes? Who failed to administer justice according to the laws of the land for over a decade in terrorist related cases? Even in a case as fully documented as Operation Black Thunder, where the entire action was carried out in full view of the media, not a single conviction was pronounced. I urge upon your government to take up these issues urgently and seriously and to take necessary steps, in combination and co-ordination with all other arms of India’s democratic polity, to ensure necessary action.
Did Not Plead for Immunity
“But let the investigations and trials be according to the laws of the land, and let the special circumstances that prevailed in Punjab be taken into consideration by the statutes applied. Investigations and trials should not proceed according to the processes that are being improvised from day to day to implicate the police in Punjab.”
“A Constitutional Commission should be set up to examine the records of judicial processes and judgments during the years of terrorism in Punjab; to identify the judicial officers who failed to discharge their Constitutional obligations, and to honour their oath to dispense justice without fear or favour; to determine their accountability; and to take suitable action to ensure that the judicial and criminal justice system does not collapse or fail ever again in the face of lawlessness.”
KPS Gill passed away on 26 May 2017 at Delhi’s Ganga Ram hospital after suffering a cardiac arrest. You can read the full letter here.
(Graphics: The Quint/Harsh Sahani)
Also Read: Goodbye KPS Gill, You Will Be Remembered
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