Sumedh Singh Saini now scared of same Punjab Police that he headed
Ground Zero
It is ironic.
Retired Punjab cadre IPS officer and once a ‘hero’ during
the period of extreme human rights violations in this border state now dreads
the same police force that he headed as its Director General when Parkash Singh
Badal headed the Akali Dal government with his son Sukhbir Singh Badal as the
deputy chief minister in charge of Home department.
Is he haunted by the methods that the police under his
command from the time he headed the districts used against not only the
militants but also the others?
He is already facing one case of disappearances relating to
his tenure as the Ludhiana district police chief and this case has nothing to
do with militancy. Those who became his victims were the common people known to
him. This case pertains to disappearance of Vinod Kumar and two others. The wheels
of justice in this case seem to have go stuck somewhere going by the years the
trial has been going on.
He has just disappeared despite having Z plus security cover
after his anticipatory bail plea was rejected by the lower court in the case of
disappearance of Balwant Singh Multani, a junior engineer working in Chandigarh
who was son of a serving IAS officer in Punjab. Saini was then SSP of union territory of Chandigarh.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has also rejected his bail
plea.
The issue here is as to why is he running away from the law of which he
was the part?
He should have rather at his own presented himself for
investigation as a ‘law abiding citizen’ as everyone is supposed to be. In this
case, the former state police chief has himself turned out to be law breaker.
Was he habitual of breaking the law and resorting to extra-legal methods as officer of
the law too?
This precisely is the issue in the present case.
Is he scared of the torture to which he might be subjected
to, the very methods that he himself might have fine tuned while in service
against others in his custody?
Then he should be rightly scared.
The person who is not guilty should not be scared, at least
this is what is expected of every law abiding ordinary citizen.
The very fact that Saini has gone underground in itself is
admission of his guilt for the use of illegal methods which the people of his
type were given that is known in the common parlance as free hand at another
level, the license to kill.
Multani was one such victim.
It may be mentioned that some other people whom he targeted
at one stage and were tortured and humiliated belonged to a different category.
The equations have now changed and Saini
is now without those powers. However, some of his victims are not.
Can the investigation into the Multani case if Saini is
arrested might expose the very policy that was evolved to confront militancy in
Punjab that was based upon extra judicial methods? This is a wider question.
The running away of Sani from the very force that he
headed at another level is indirect
evidence of brutalisation of the Punjab Police over the years that now scares
him. He is the one man who knows the level of brutalisation.
He should now have taste of his own methods.
Action should be taken against his security people too for
neglecting the person they were entrusted with the responsibility to protect. To
whom are those security people now protecting as they have not been withdrawn?
Ordinary people are being arrested by suspecting them to be
radical activists of Khalistan.
On the other hand is the former DGP having Z plus security who
has gone underground and the security agencies have failed to nab him.
Who should be made accountable in this case?
Comments
Post a Comment