AMRITSAR: The president of the Akali Dal (Amritsar), Simranjit Singh Mann said that the state was still being run by the Punjab Director General of Police, K.P.S. Gill as was the case during the chief minister ship of the late Beant Singh. Talking to media persons, he alleged that Mr. Gill had tightened the security ring around the present Chief Minister, Harcharan Singh Brar, and has made him inaccessible to the general public to maintain his supremacy. He alleged that Mr. Brar was at the mercy of the Punjab super cop” who had deliberately tightened the security ring of the chief minister with the sole aim of “isolating him from the ‘common man.”
The former IPS officer said that Chief Minister should have suspended Mr. Gill in the Rupan Deol Bajaj case, particularly, after the registration of an FIR by the Chandigarh police against him.
The Akali leader said that “Police Raj still prevailed in the state as was the case when the late Beant Singh was the chief minister. He urged the Punjab Chief Minister to take steps to putamen to ‘police militancy” and bring the cops under civil administration.
AS far as the violation of human rights in the bordering state is concerned, Mr, Mann said that the recent case of disappearance of a human rights activist, Mr. Jaswant Singh Khalra under mysterious circumstances itself was a pointer to the condition.
He said his party will file a “rapportier’ regarding the disappearance of Mr. Khalra before the United Nation’s Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
When questioned about the police claims that certain militant groups had reentered Punjab, Mr. Mann said this was again a strategy of Mr. Gill to divert the attention of the people from the ongoing Gill Rupan Deol case which is sub judice. Mr. Gill’s frustrations had reached such a point that he may now “invent militants so to enable him to stick to his post,” Mr. Mann added.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 17, 1995
