FORMER PUNJAB POLICE CHIEF KPS GILL PASSES AWAY AT 82
END OF AN ERA The former DGP of Punjab and Assam was admitted to hospital on May 18
CHANDIGARH: He inspired awe and repulsion, simultaneously.
Super Cop KPS Gill, a towering symbol as an instrument of policing and police is no more. He died at age of 82, in New Delhi, on Friday due to heart attack that followed a brief illness. He is survived by wife, a son and a daughter.
A 1958 batch officer, Gill was moved to Punjab as head of the state police when Khalistan movement was at peak and state was hit by a severe form of in-house terrorism. He was head of the state police initially in 1988 to 1990 and then from 1991 till his retirement in 1995.
For a section as DGP Gill was symbol of fear and for another a hero. A saviour for the terrorists-hit and a reason for loathing for those active in the ‘movement’, Gill earned the sobriquet of ‘Super Cop’ who put a full stop on insurgency in Punjab.
He led operation bluestar, to flush out terrorists out of Golden Temple, a second after army’s bloody operation Bluestar.
Known to be “decisive” and “strong willed” person, Gill, stood by his men who performed in the field, fighting insurgency.
Honours and discredits went side by side for Gill. Awarded Padma Shri award in 1989 for his valour, he was convicted in 1996 for outraging modesty of a female IAS officer Rupan Deol Bajaj.
He remained president or Indian hockey federation for 14 tears till 2008 when the body was suspended, after Indian team failed to qualify for Olympics for the first time. Conjectures were drawn that Gill was behind extrajudicial killings in Punjab and most prominently the disappearance of human rights activists Jaswant Singh Khalra.
Author and journalist Kushwant Singh supported Gill’s use of extrajudicial methods to “stamp out terrorism” as the judicial system was in a state of collapse due to judges being too frightened to rule against the “terrorists”, while writing a review on a book about the killings. The accounts of killings, as Singh said were “spine-chilling”.
Gill was a man with opinion, who criticised government for lacking a policy on handling national security issues. He blamed it to soft nature and lack of preparedness for insurgency in different parts of the country. For the proficiency he “mastered” to fight insurgency, and in 2002 he was taken as a security advisor by Narendra Modi, the then chief minister of Gujarat, before that in 2000 by Sri Lankan government to fight LTTE insurgents. In 2006 he worked as advisor for the Chattisgarh government to fight Maoists.