JAGRAON: The Punjab Police is getting ready to go to Assam in the northeast to help fight the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) there on a specific request received from union ministry of Home Affairs.
This was disclosed by Director General of Punjab Police Karam Pal Singh Gill.
Gill said strength of dispatch would be worked out when he meets his Assam counterpart S.B_ Subramaniam shortly. Punjab was most likely to send some commando units of which it already has five battalions.
He claimed that there was no resentment in other slates over entry of Punjab Police in search of escaped militants there; In fact, he said the Bihar police Chief rang him up the other day to congratulate him for eliminating Harkewal Singh Sarabha of Khalistan Liberation Force there a week ago.
Gill stated in reply to a question that corrupt elements were being weeded out of the police force under summary procedures; He Said there was no move to disband any police district.
“If militancy ever raises ills head, the entire Punjab should stand like one against it to defeat it,” he said. He observed that recent experience had shown disease of militancy could only be fought out and that a policy of compromise did not work here.
He recalled that militancy had proliferated in the state in the past as some unscrupulous elements shrouded it in a religious garb. Besides, often the police and the administration were charged with engineering killings under some secret plan. Now that the militants were no longer on the scene, people were moving freely and understood the truth, he added.
As many as 25 widows of aged mothers of as many policemen belonging to Jagraon, who had fallen victim to bullets of militants, were presented checks worth Rs 27,000 each by Gill on this occasion. The amount of about Rs 9 lakh was donated by the residents of the town.
The Congress (I) Member of Lok Sabha Gurcharan Singh Galib and CPMMLA Tarsem Jodhan, urged the police chief to take stem action against black sheep in his force which were tarnishing the image of the police. They wanted a check on police excesses and corruption.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 16, 1993
