CHANDIGARH: Hundreds of provincial civil service officers of Punjab including women officers trooped to Chandigarh early this week to lodge their protest with India’s puppet government of the State against the police and to demand restoration of the “rule of law.” The officers have been agitated for more than 10 days as two of their colleagues were arrested by the Jalandhar district police and humiliated, The officers on a directive by the Punjab P.C.S. Officers Association have been on strike and have not been per forming any magisterial functions, The only work they have been doing pertains to extension of relief to victims of the recent heavy floods in the state. They had planned a march towards the Punjab governor’s official residence to submit a memorandum of their grievances but put off the action on the chief secretary’s ad advice, They instead, held a rally here. The association decided that P.C.S. officers would step up their agitation later this week by going of a mass Casual leave for one day, In the next phase of the agitation, they would offer themselves for arrest on Aug.23, They decided not to attend to senior officers and ministers visiting districts,

A deputation of the officers met chief minister Beant Singh and asked him to shift Jalandhar district police chief and others responsible for excesses against their colleagues so that an impartial enquiry could be conducted by one of the Punjab secretaries C.L.Bains. But Beant Singh flatly refused to concede any such demand,

The association meanwhile appealed to lower level revenue officers like Qanungos and Patwaris to go on “pen down” strike in sympathy with P.C.S. officers. Already tehsil level officers of the revenue department are on “pen down” strike. The association asked state level officers associations in the neighboring states to give them support at this crucial hour in their fight against the police and for restoration of the rule of law.

A few P.C.S. officers who spoke at the association meeting admit ted that some of their colleagues had been a party to the imposition of the police rule in the state. They pledged against any such weakness in future. They also said that no P.C.S, officer in future would go out of their way to collect funds and run shows at the behest of senior officers and ministers.

Meanwhile, $.G.P.C. chief Gurcharan Singh Tohra supported the P.C.S. officers’ demands and said that the manner in which the police was allowed to arrest two P.C.S. officers as “ordinary criminals” showed that Punjab was under the police rule, Tohra said that the chief minister had meekly sub mitted to the police and had called their agitation as wrong. The $.G.P.C. chief said that the next Akali government’s first priority would be to restore the powers of the I.A.S. and P.C.S. officers vis-a-vis the police.

According to observers, civil administration in Punjab‘s districts remains paralyzed for more than a week owing to the P.C.S. officers agitation and the “pen down strike.”

Article extracted from this publication >>  August 27, 1993