CHANDIGARH, May 16 — The Punjab Government is in no mood to release TADA detenus facing trial in different courts. Senior police officers, in fact, expressed surprise at the statement of Union Home Minister, Lal Krishan Advani that along with Kashmiri militants, the government was considering the release of some militants from Punjab jails. “We do not understand the significance of the statement as at no level has the police been directed to make its assessment and release the detained persons”, a senior police officer here said. He did not comment on the political nature of the statement. ‘‘Well, that aspect only the political masters know. Our job is to police the state”, he quipped.

According to the information collected by The Tribune, the Punjab Government, which constituted a committee of three senior officers under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretary, has been constantly reviewing the cases and ordering the release of the detenus. Until now 550 cases have been reviewed by this committee and 262 persons had been languishing in jails for one to 10 years have been released. Ever since the Akali-BJP government came into power, the government has released 142 detenus. “We are constantly on the job and would not like to keep even a single person without some justification. We have to take care as in some cases the released persons again joined the militants. We had to arrest some of them again”, Mr S.V. Singh, Additional Director General of police dealing with crime said. He was clear in his mind that if the government decided to release more detenus, the police would go by the decision. But each case had to be reviewed and an assessment made.

The majority of these persons are detained in the high security prison at Nabha and some in Jodhpur jail. The Akali Dal which had been a very harsh critic of TADA since its inception in 1984, has taken the same route which the previous Congress Government took. There were four reviews during 1994 and the committee released 119 persons who were facing charges for terrorist activity in 117 cases. In 1995, only one person was released though 16 cases were reviewed at two meetings In 1996, though two meetings were held, the committee did not release anyone. Most of the detained persons face serious charges. In 1997, 261 cases were taken up and the government ordered the release of 107 detainees. The next year, 22 persons were released although the committee took up as many as 115 cases. Last year, three persons were released and the committee took up 31 cases.