KPS Gill
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Role in "Operation Black Thunder"
By A S Dulat, He thought of things no one had, May 27, 2017: The Times of India
The death of KPS Gill, a cop's cop, marks the end to an era. Arguably, he was one of the greatest police officers ever and the last of our leaders -a big and strong man with a heart of gold.
What I found most striking about Gill sahib is his sense of history . He was an Assam cadre IPS officer but returned to serve in his native state Punjab as DGP twice, first in 1988 and then in 1991.Had it not been for Gill, the Punjab militancy problem would not have been solved in a timebound manner.
Had Gill been leading Punjab police in 1984, there would have been no need for Operation Bluestar. He had many a time spoken against the Army for mishandling the issue. Had he been in charge, Gill would have carefully gone over the strategy and the adverse impact that Operation Bluestar has had on Punjab and India could have been avoided.
The contrast was evident in Operation Black Thunder conducted when Gill was Punjab DGP .
It was a success: flushing out Sikh militants largely due to out-of-the-box thinking of the `Big Man' Gill.
In his dictionary, there was no such phrase as `can't be done' or `never'.
District SPs were willing to give up their lives for him. It spoke volumes about their faith in his leadership. On his part, Gill did everything to back his officers and was willing to stick his neck out in the process.
Gill thought of things and strategies no one thought of before -one being `night domination', where his officers and policemen would be out tracking militants at night. Following his stint in Punjab, Gill was considered for governorship of J&K. I'm told that then MoS (internal security) was keen to have him in J&K, but Gill insisted he was a man of the field and would rather head the police set-up than be in Raj Bhavan. I'm told that the then governor Krishna Rao almost panicked at the thought of Gill being in charge of J&K police as he would be `uncontrollable'.
Gill sahib was a tough guy with a soft inside. He would never shout at subordinates, as he never needed to. Such was his confidence.
When his officers fell into bad times with cases filed against them in wake of their crackdown on Sikh militancy, he stood by them. He reassured them saying he'd be the first to face prosecution. I never had the chance to work with Gill sahib but we shared an occasional drink. He made a great impact. It was a privilege to have known him.
