NAGPUR: The director general Of the Punjab police, K.P.S.Gill and his men are giving sleepless nights to the Nagpur police by their frequent forays into Vidarbha to nab some suspected militants.
In the latest incident, the city police control room was abuzz with frantic calls of armed Punjab militants having been spotted near Buti Bon, an industrial town 27 km from here, on Wardha road.
A red alert was sounded and a police party of the commando unit ward despatched to the spot. The police also barricaded the entrance tothe city from Wardha. A private bus bearing a Punjab number plate was spotted and stopped. The 40Seater bus had 12 armed men in civies and a woman. Although initially reluctant, the men later revealed that they were Punjab policemen.
The city police said that there was an altercation between the Punjab policemen and a garage boy at Buti Bori. The policemen wanted 10 get a punctured tire repaired. One of the policemen rebuked the boy for the delay, upon which the offended boy brandished a knife, a policeman slapped him and whipped out his gun which attracted local people who, in tum, got panicky and rank up the Nagpur police.
The Nagpur police detained the armed men till their identity was verified with the Punjab police authorities.
Only a couple of days ago, a Sikh couple were reported “kidnapped” by armed Sikhs. The Chandrapur police sounded an alarm, but there was no clue.
The mystery has now been solved. The Punjab police had taken into custody one Kewal Singh alias Mithu, his wife, Amarject Kaur, and her brother-in-law, who were engaged in a transport business in Chandrapur. It is said that the suspects had links with a militant outfit of Punjab and were ordered to be detained under TADA, the clue to whereabouts of the couple was provided by the woman’s father who had not approved of her marriage to Kewal Singh.
Ina similar incidental few months ago, Punjab police personnel in civil dress and armed with guns had created panic in the city. People, mistaking them for militants, alerted the city police only to be apprised of their official identity.
None too pleased by the activities of the Punjab police, the Nagpur police commissioner, Arvind Inamdar, said that he was going to take up the issue with the director general of the Punjab police. “It would have resulted in a shootout, had not our men maintained restraint. It is a foolish and dangerous thing,” he remarked.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 28, 1993
