Debate I KPS Gill Sincerely Believed He Was Fighting Asuras

KPS Gill, the controversial supercop did what an extraordinary situation in Punjab required him to do in the 80s.

(Is Gill doctrine, a set of rigorous measures adopted by police personnel to curb unrest, justified as an ‘extraordinary’ response to an extraordinary situation? This is the View. You may read the Counterview here.)

KPS Gill was a product of his times. It was one of the most turbulent periods in the history of India. A region which had been the bulwark of defence against any aggression from across the western borders suddenly witnessed a secessionist movement with the demand for an independent Khalistan.

Also Read: KPS Gill: From Assam’s Plains to Punjab, The Cop Who Listened

Khalistani Movement

Those wanting to break away from the Indian Union found strong support from Pakistan, which provided arms, ammunition, explosives, financial assistance and training facilities. It was the greatest challenge to national integrity that the Indian State had faced. The country mobilised all its forces and deputed its finest officers to deal with the challenge.

The tallest among these officers, not only in height but in stature, was Kanwar Pal Singh Gill. He rose to the occasion and was able to vanquish what was one of the most lethal and devastating terrorist movements in the history of the world.

When Terror Stalked

The present generation can hardly visualise the horrendous environment that prevailed in Punjab during the nineties.

Siddharth Shankar Ray, then Governor of Punjab, in a report to the President of India, acknowledged that “there was not only a parallel authority working in the state by the fundamentalists and/or the extremists in the temple and the gurudwaras, but terror stalked the land and fear abided in almost every heart”.

There were political assassinations, attacks on police and paramilitary personnel and even the Indian Army. The terrorists banned the singing of national anthem and teaching of Hindi in schools.

Also Read: Here’s What KPS Gill Wrote to PM About Police Excesses in Punjab

The civil administration had virtually ceased to function. Judiciary was overawed. As was rightly said by a journalist, “People have surrendered to the law of the gun... there is no such thing as a society... there is police and there are terrorists.”

Extraordinary Response

It was an extraordinary situation which called for an extraordinary response. KPS Gill went hammer and tongs against terrorists. There was a bullet for another bullet. No quarters were given, none were asked for. Violence was given a matching response. Unconventional methods were often used.

Human shields, a tactic which has resulted in so much brouhaha these days, were used. Terrorists’ supporters and sympathisers were taken in vehicles traversing the worst affected areas. If the terrorists attacked soft targets like families of policemen, they were given a taste of their own medicine.

The tactics worked and eventually the tide turned. The terrorist movement was comprehensively defeated.

Also Watch: RIP KPS Gill: The ‘Supercop’ Who Quelled Khalistani Militancy

BSF’s Contribution

Lest the contribution of others is lost sight of, it must be placed on record that the Border Security Force played a stellar role and was able to choke the supply of oxygen from Pakistan. The CRPF lent valuable support to Punjab Police. The Indian Army made its signal contribution. Political support, particularly by Beant Singh as chief minister, enabled police to unleash its fierce offensive against terrorists.

Human Rights Violation

All said and done, Gill’s contribution was maximum.

No doubt, there were serious human rights violations in the process. After the terrorist movement was crushed and peace was restored, there were over 2,500 writ petitions filed in the Supreme Court and the Punjab and Haryana High Courts against Punjab police officers.

Many of them faced prosecution. “It is perfectly valid,” as Shekhar Gupta said in 1996, “to question the methods used by the security forces, but isn’t it more important to ask who is ordering them to do so? It is incredibly and shamefully low of us to ask our armed forces to put their lives on the line, do the dirty work and then, when all is back to normal and the debris of war is cremated or buried, to hark back to the ‘law is supreme in a civil society’ mode”.

Fighting Asuras

In such situations, as Lord Denning said, “The freedom of the individual must take second place to the security of the state.”

The Punjab crisis saw five prime ministers and as many internal security ministers. They all knew what was happening in Punjab – in fact, it had their tacit approval. Why should then police be singled out for blame?

Gill sincerely believed that he was fighting asuras who had to be destroyed in the best traditions of fight between the good and the evil, and he did that with aplomb.

Also Read: Goodbye KPS Gill, You Will Be Remembered

(The writer was Inspector General/Additional DG BSF, Punjab Frontier from 1987 to 1991. He can be reached @singh_prakash. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)