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Covered with
shame, Punjab covers up with probe
WSN Network
 CHANDIGARH: As
India went through public shame and dedicated hard nut-cracking
police officers IN GUJARAT brought out how their colleagues earned
sobriquets of "encounter specialists" by killing people in cold
blood with proactive collusion of the state power, it was also the
turn of the establishment in Punjab to face greater shame.
Hit by a spate of media reports on fake encounters in Punjab which
were common currency in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Parkash
Singh Badal government has now finally ordered a probe. Reluctantly
ordered, and after much shrill questioning by the media about what
the government was doing, the probe will be headed by an ADGP ranked
officer J P Birdi. It will be a totally police affair. So, for the
time being, the panthic government is not likely to face any trouble
on this score since Punjab cops are not known to create trouble for
fellow cops. How many cops have ever spoken the truth about KPS
Gill?
Initially, the probe was to be confined to just three cases reported
by sections of the media (see WSN issue of May 2-9), but after the
media raised a hue and cry, Birdi said it will have a larger focus.
Some seriousness this! THE probe leader is changing the terms of
reference without even officially beginning the probe!
While in Gujarat, the common criminals were killed in fake
encounters, in Punjab, the police routinely killed innocents and
passed off the corpses as belonging to "dreaded militants" with
rewards on their heads. Now that the "dreaded militants" have been
found indulging in such dangerous anti-national activity as tending
to their cattle and ploughing their fields or taking care of old
incapacitated parents, Badal has tasked the benevolent agency of the
government to probe the matter. It is called the Punjab Police.
The terms of reference of the probe have not been made public.
Conveniently for the government, no deadline is fixed either. In
1997, Badal had promised in writing THE setting up of a Commission
to look into the era of militancy but after he won the polls, he
went back on the promise by saying that such a Commission will only
dig up old bones.
Now that a few old bones had turned up to be alive, the issue had
come back haunting the government of Akalis and the BJP. The Akalis
had then led a Dharam Yudh Morcha, and the BJP had strongly opposed
the Sikh aspirational demands during those years. Now, the alliance
government will oversee a probe into an issue which has shamed the
BJP in Gujarat and the Akalis in Punjab.
9 May, 2007
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