LUDHIANA : The Director General of Punjab Police, K.P.S. Gill, Sept.10th, admitted that militants ‘were getting new recruits in the state.
Talking to media persons here, Gill said three of the five assassins of Chief Minister Beant Singh were new entrants to militancy and the other two were old hands. He maintained that the number of militants operating in the border state was very few.
Gill, who was here to review the ant militant operations in Ludhiana police range, said Pakistan was still trying to infiltrate them into India. He said all militant plans these days are hatched abroad and “we are at the receiving end.”
In a new twist to the Beant assassination case, Gill said that the Balwant Singh, who is absconding, could have been the human bomb, Balwant Singh had been recruited as a constable in Punjab Police in 1987.
Asked if police laxity had led to the blast in Chandigarh, Gill replied in the negative, He claimed the police had conducted some low-profile but highly professional operations to check militant activity and these had been successful.
He reiterated that the security personnel of the slain Chief Minister had no hand in the macabre incident as bome out by the fact that nine security personnel, including six Punjab cops and three National Security Guards (NSG), and one Haryana cop had died in the explosion and the SP in charge of security had been seriously injured. He termed it a failure of the proximate security groups of the Chief Minister at the time.”
Article extracted from this publication >> September 15, 1995
