M A I N   N E W S

Hockey star Jugraj, others demoted
Prabhjot Singh
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 11
In a shocking turn of events, the Punjab Government has ordered demotion of six international sports stars, including three Olympic hockey probables — Jugraj Singh, Kanwalpreet Singh and Tejbir Singh — to the rank of Sub-Inspector from their present rank of Inspector.

The demotion orders were served on Tejbir Singh, Kanwalpreet Singh and Jugraj Singh (all hockey players), Rattan Lal (volleyball), Gurvinder Singh (wrestling) and Ajay Raj Singh (track and field). All of them had been working as regular Inspectors since October, 2002.

Demotions have been ordered at a time when the country is looking forward to improving its standing in the coming Olympic Games to be held at Athens from August 13 to 28 this year.

Intriguingly, the Punjab Government also plans to appoint seven Deputy Superintendents of Police from amongst sportsmen and sportswomen of the State. A meeting of the selection committee headed by the Punjab Home Secretary, Mr S.K. Sinha, is scheduled for February 13. Other members of the committee are the Sports Secretary, Mr D.S. Bains, and the Punjab Director-General of Police, Dr A.A. Siddiqui. These seven posts were advertised in newspapers on February 7.

The candidates for these senior positions in the Police Department are not known.

On the one hand, international stars are being demoted while at the same time seven posts taken out of the purview of the Punjab Public Service Commission are being filled at a supersonic speed.

Wrestler Palwinder Singh Cheema, who became the first Punjab police wrestler to win medals in both the Commonwealth Games and the Commonwealth Wrestling Championship last year, is one of the candidates for the post of Deputy Superintendent of Police. But currently he is busy in Olympic qualifying tournaments and may not be able to appear before the selection committee on February 13.

Another probable could be international shooter Manavjit Singh who has a spate of successes in various international events. He is also an Olympic probable.

The previous Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janta Party (SAD-BJP) Government made direct recruitment of DSPs and selected among others hockey star Gagan Ajit Singh, athlete Sunita Rani and rower Jagjit Singh besides a few other sportsmen and women from lesser known sports like fencing, archery and women’s football.

New recruitments apart, sports circles are shocked over demotions ordered in the Punjab police. International star and country’s best drag flicker Jugraj Singh, who had undergone fresh bone graft surgeries in the USA, had announced only last week that he would resume his practice from his next birthday on April 22. The entire country had been praying for his speedy recovery and hoping that he would be fit to play for the country in the Athens Olympics.

Kanwalpreet and Tejbir are also among the national probables for the Olympic qualifying tournament in Spain.

“There could not have been a bigger shock from the Punjab Government to the sports fraternity, especially in the Olympic year after reiterating time and again that no deserving international sportsman or woman would be demoted,” says Mr Teja Singh Dhaliwal, Secretary, Punjab Basketball Association.

The Punjab Government had maintained throughout that reversion of sportsmen and women was only a formality to meet the requirement of the Punjab and Haryana High Court directive. The government, including the Chief Minister, had reiterated time and again that after a formal reversion to their substantive ranks, the affected sportsmen and women would be put back in their present ranks against newly created positions. Though the new posts have been created on an year-to-year basis, the continuation of sportsmen and women in service was being viewed as conversion of their regular employee status to that of ad hoc employees.

The reversion orders were reportedly issued by the Additional Director-General of Police, Punjab Armed Police, on the directions of the Director-General of Police.