When policemen go rogue

Every passing day deepens the mystery of the killing of four soldiers inside the Bathinda military establishment in the wee hours of Wednesday. Was it a terror attack or a sad story of fratricide? It looks more like an outside job because there is still no trace of the attackers, which is not normally the case of brothers-in-arms turning against each other. In a case of a murder of passion within a group, the perpetrator either kills himself after the deed or surrenders, boasting about his motives. In this case, the killers have disappeared into thin air. Yet, it seemed a targeted killing and not a mindless shooting spree, which is the hallmark of a suicidal or fidayeen terror attack. But such a mysterious attack inside the bulwark on the western frontier, whose strategic importance needs no iteration, is deeply disturbing.

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People will not forgive the AAP if it too patronises the cops and politicos who have poisoned the youth of the state, debilitating the famed Punjabi spirit.

This attack on the cantonment immediately drew comparisons with the terror attack on the Pathankot airbase on January 2, 2016, which was valiantly rebuffed by the Garud commandos, with seven security personnel getting killed in the process of eliminating the heavily armed fidayeen. And any reference to the Pathankot attack cannot be complete without mention of the lingering mystery of the role of former Gurdaspur SP Salwinder Singh. This border district SP miraculously happened to be on the road without his gunmen in the dead of night at the exact spot where the Pakistani terrorists wanted a ride. He and his cook were conveniently tied up and later mercifully let off by those who had killed everyone else in sight.

Salwinder was given a ‘clean chit’ by the National Investigation Agency, though there was a strong suspicion of his involvement in offering logistics to the terrorists. Soon after, he absconded and later stood trial for rape and graft charges, for which he was convicted. So, a bent cop, who would not hesitate to rape the wife of an accused on the pretext of getting her husband exonerated and has plenty of corruption charges against him, is deemed innocent in a case of terrorists taking his private car on their way to hit one of the country’s vital air force installations. Then, corruption in a border district obviously does not preclude drug smuggling from Pakistan with all its accompanying ills. It is the greed of the crooked cops that floods Punjab with drugs or makes the border porous.

Any unusual occurrence close to the border, be it the Pathankot or Bathinda incidents, evokes suspicion not because of the bloodthirsty neighbour perpetually seeking to avenge the loss of J&K and Bangladesh, but because of the depraved elements in the BSF and Punjab Police. All cross-border mischief is patronised by these corrupt men, who in turn have strong political benefactors. The best example is the recent opening of a five-year-old report submitted to the Punjab and Haryana High Court by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) led by former DGP Siddharth Chattopadhyaya. The terms of reference of the investigation were very limited; in fact, it was to look into merely the complicity of one SSP, Raj Jit Singh Hundal, in the activities of a dismissed inspector, Inderjit Singh. But what emerges is the shocking rot within the Punjab Police hierarchy.

For instance, Harpreet Singh Sidhu, the upright officer who arrested Inderjit, had this to tell the SIT, “…proceeds/money from drug trade are being laundered through various means. It has been learnt confidentially that large amounts of money, which are proceeds of drug trade and other illegal activities, are being invested, in India and abroad, by various persons, including police officials, through individuals, firms, companies that are operating as fronts for the actual investors. Contacts with other agencies have revealed that Raj Jit Singh and Inderjit Singh, along with other police officials, are closely connected with one person known as ‘Dev Bath’, who is a citizen of a foreign country and originally belongs to Jalandhar… it is necessary that the role of Raj Jit Singh, Inderjit Singh and other persons associated with them, who are likely to be using front persons/companies for investing proceeds of crime/drug trade in both India and abroad, be investigated with a detailed multi-agency effort so that the nexus can be unearthed and those involved in these criminal activities can be brought to book.”

Of course, no such multi-agency effort was initiated by the Punjab or Central governments. Raj Jit is still in service. The police have not been able to even file a challan in the drug case against SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia, despite his sensational arrest by the Congress government in February 2022 and subsequent incarceration for more than five months. Chattopadhyaya’s SIT had concluded that “there are many officers who have got Inderjit Singh posted under them from time to time and similar complicity of Inderjit Singh with those officers can be a subject matter of a separate inquiry/investigation.” The SIT report clearly exposes the crooked cops’ modus operandi: smuggling of drugs from Pakistan and facilitation of the trade; planting drugs, real or fake, on innocent people to terrorise them and extort money; implicating them in NDPS cases; getting samples ‘failed’ to help smugglers; and getting relief through discharge and bail orders for money.

All this cannot be orchestrated by one Inderjit or Raj Jit alone.

The details of Raj Jit’s properties, if investigated thoroughly, may tell a tale of the scale of corruption in Punjab Police. In the pyramidal structure of drug money accruals, extortion and bribes, top officials and their political masters cannot be absent. The Akalis and the Congress were swept out of power because the voters despised their role in protecting the rotten eggs. People will not forgive the AAP if it too patronises the cops and politicos who have poisoned the youth of the state, debilitating the famed Punjabi spirit. The Bhagwant Mann government can start off by proceeding against Raj Jit and prosecuting all the benefactors of the crooked duo. If not, the next fidayeen attackers will also be driving another Salwinder’s car to a military target.