Beware Rulers, Dark Clouds Ahead

By FATEH CHAND

The most distressing news about self-homicide, by the S Ajit Singh Sandhu, Sr Supdt of Police, Tarn Taran (Punjab, India), must have hit and moved the minds of all Police personnel, serving or retired, in Punjab. It is a pity that a brave Police officer, who had been protecting people from tyranny, victimization, and killings, even at the cost of his life, died wanting protection. During 1935 to 1947, so far as knowledge goes, in Punjab, not even a single low-ranking Police officer, (what to speak of the high-rankers), ever committed suicide on account of such inhuman victimization.

Nobody commits suicide with pleasure. Only the worst type of agony and undue mental pressure overpowers him to finish his life. His self respect and dignity challenges him to die rather than to live a humiliating, dishonored, wretched and distressed life. What Mehta Chhabil Lal, Sr Supdt of Police, Hissar (Punjab), did in the sixties, Sandhu repeated it now. However, Mehta was being victimized by the State authorities by leveling false charges of corruption in worst form. In another case, a former Sr Supdt of Police, Ambala, Janak Raj, IPS, was forced to proceed on premature retirement under duress by leveling shameless and, fictitious allegations of immorality because he too like Mehta, had been refusing to accede to the illegitimate demands of his political boss or his supporters, meant to oblige the voters. There were several other similar cases during the post-independence period. To please the "party," voters in such an unjustified manner, at the cost of law and order, is seldom accepted anywhere in the world. Sandhu’s sacrifice mustthe eyes of the rulers. The State and the Central Government both cannot absolve themselves from responsibility in this episode. This is what the general public and the Police employees feel.

The rulers of the day should realize that dark clouds are hovering over the Western State or Punjab and North-Eastern States of Assam etc. Even Andhra Pradesh is in trouble. In Punjab, what the late Sardar Beant Singh and DGP Sardar KPS Gill did to restore peace after a decade of anarchy, was wiped out with a single stroke of pen by deputing the CBI to ‘dig out the old graves.’ It means that they had no faith in the Punjab Police officers. Where were these leaders and the CBI when blood was flowing in the streets of Punjab and there was anarchy all around and all this was being done by the evil designs of the Pakistani ISI? The officers of that foreign intelligence wing may be laughing at you.

The CBI should put their energies and resources to dig out international nets and conspiracies of the enemies who are bent upon cutting the Motherland to pieces, rather than use this force to act to please the voters of the bosses. A man in the street knows that the Hawala Racket, dug out by the CBI, was only an election ‘masala.’ Initially, it was used in the recent general elections by Rao and the CBI arrested top Congress and BJP leaders, who were in the opposite camps of Rao. When he lost and was dethroned his successors tried to use it for their ends, particularly to tarnish the name of the Congress, again in the name of rooting out corruption. Even an ordinary constable knows that mere entries in a diary of some one or other remote circumstantial evidence can never earn a conviction. The results are coming out and not only these arrested leaders but also the Jain Brothers, who supposedly bribed them, are being acquitted. This depicts the true picture of the working of this great organization, the CBI. In Punjab, they are not the least concerned about any deteriorating situation of peace as Law and Order is a State subject.

Both the State and Central Governments should move with utmost care. Punjab is not a bed of roses, now. It is the bed of prickly and poisonous thorns and time may come when even the current rulers may also not be able to escape this poison. They should save the present situation from further deterioration with desired ability, and also enact laws to protect the Police personnel for the future. If anything unfavorable happens and the Police personnel hesitate to shoulder the responsibilities the people may be tempted to greet the rulers with filth and stones in place of roses, which they had showered when they went to occupy the ‘gaddi.’

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