CHANDIGARH: Ruling politicians including ministers and officers of Punjab are suspicious of the state police force and do not want their personal security guards to be manned by this force, Most Ministers and officers prefer the central reserve police force. The compulsion of the threatened Politicians and officers is so great that no one is willing even to talk about the Punjab police in the open. More specifically these men are mortally afraid of the police chief K.P.S. Gill whom they regard as law unto himself answerable to none, A few Indian newspapers carried news about the motives of the ministers and officers to surrender security guards consisting of the Punjab police. “They are ill trained, ill-equipped, indiscipline and arbitrary,” says one officer who is afraid of being identified. An MLL.A. (legislator) complained against the Punjab police personnel on his guard duty because one of them misbehaved with his maid. A bureaucrat requested the Punjab “policemen to be kept out of his house because he suspected his pet had been stolen by them. “While the C.R.P.F. men obtain their meals from a mobile mess, there is no such arrangement for the Punjab police men who cither insist on the legislators or officers to provide them with food. Otherwise they would Leave all at once for food leaving them without a security cover,” one officer observed. Many I.A.S. officers heaved a sigh of relief after they surrendered their police security guards, “It is better to do without them,” one of them quipped. All important political men have C.R.P-F. men as their guards. Even K.P.S. Gill or Beant Singh do not trust the Punjab police, according to a source.
Article extracted from this publication >> Aug 14, 1992
