WSN Service

 CHANDIGARH: Machinery to hold enquiries into police excesses in Punjab has collapsed, according to members of Punjab Civil Service Officers Association. The Association held a one day meeting at Punjab Bhavan last week. Among those present, apart from more than 100 members, was Punjab Chief Secretary Tejinder Khanna.

Members of Punjab Civil Service are mostly officers at the grassroots level who, on paper, enjoy certain executive and judicial powers. Their opinion on the current human rights situation vis a vis the police functioning proved yet another eye opener to the Chief Secretary who a few weeks earlier had found senior rung secretaries extremely critical of the police functioning in the state.

Attack on the police at the P.C.S officers meeting was spearheaded by Jaswant Singh, Sub Divisional Magistrate of Sunman subdivision in Patiala district. He said the deaths in police custody or in armed encounters were investigated by S. D.Ms in terms of the Indian Police Act but this was no longer being in Punjab thanks to the police supremacy over the magistracy .The police officers themselves held en 4quiries into their own actions with the result that the public was fast losing faith in civil administration.

The participants endorsed Jaswant Singh’s views and said that the rule of law had been given the goby in Punjab. The speakers remembered that station house officers of police used to report daily to S.D.Ms on the law and order situation but no longer so now. That was because S.D.Ms was confidential reports on D.S.Ps. But now these officers did not care even for Deputy Com missioners of districts.

The Chief Secretary did not agree with the view that the public was losing faith in the civil administration but promised to ensure that the Governor should have periodic meetings with P.C.S Officers in the same was as he met divisional commissioners, range D.l.Gs and Deputy Commissioners to have a feed-back on the public response to govt and its policies.

The members of the association resented recruitment of relations of those killed at the hands of militants to the P.CS. cadre posts on “com passionate grounds”. Such recruitment, they felt, should be extremely rare .S.S. Dhillon and Mehtab Singh were elected President and Senior Vice President respectively while Jagjit Puri, P.S. Mand, G.S Dhaliwal and M.N. Rishi were elected Vice President, general secretary, joint secretary and treasurer respectively.

Two dozen sarpanches of Kahnuwan block of Gurdaspur district at a Press conference at Batala aired their grievances against the police. Sarpanch Amar Singh of Naine Kot said he was arrested by the police as and when any incident took place in the area and was dishonored. Three years ago his son was detained by the police but the S.S.P. released him and asked the sarpanch to send the son away. Consequently, he was sent to Calcutta for business. Yet, according to the sarpanch, the police made it a habit to arrest him as and when an incident took place in the area. Panch Jaspal Singh said he was beaten up by the police after he was taken to thana. He said he feared death at the police hands. The village representatives also said that 47 persons including sarpanches and panches of Ganopur, Saidowal and Kane were detained at Kahnuowan police station for several days in connection with a bomb blast near Kane village. They are being insulted and humiliated, No case had been registered against them.

The police illegally detained several relations of Khalistan Commando Force (Panjwar) area com mander Gulzar Singh Bhola Bahoru, according to are port from Jandiala Guru, Those detained include uncle Shingara Singh (60), aunt Ajit Kaur (55), aunt’s daughter Sukhwinder Kaur (40), her mother-in-law Mohinder Kaur and two other distant relations. Similarly, Jandiala Guru Police picked up five distant relations of Bhai Bhola, a militant. The people of Rahorn took out a procession in front of the Deputy Commissioners residence against the police action.

Article extracted from this publication >> October 11, 1991