Chandigarh, February 23
With Akalis and various human rights organisations gunning for the Punjab Director-General of Police, Mr S.S. Virk, over his revelation that rehabilitation of some of the Punjab militants had the sanction and blessing of the State, former Punjab police chief KPS Gill today dispatched a three-page letter to Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, in defence of Mr Virk.

“The current and orchestrated controversy in the media is a continuation of this campaign, which is, itself, a part of Pakistan’s long range strategy to revive militancy in Punjab, by 2025, of which the information is with me and should be available to your intelligence resources as well,” wrote Mr Gill in his letter.

Mr Gill maintained that his views on that period of Punjab history were set out years ago when he wrote to the then Prime Minister, Mr Inder Kumar Gujral, in May, 1997, after Mr Ajit Singh Sandhu, a retired Senior Superintendent of Punjab Police, had allegedly committed suicide by jumping before a train.

“My intention was that the attempts to demoralise police officers and men who had fought terrorism at great personal risk and risk to their families, should be protected from malicious campaigns of vilification based on prejudiced evidence and being furthered by a section of the judiciary which had been too frightened to act during the days of terrorism, but had been totally subverted through bribery and ideological sympathies, to act in a most prejudicial manner after the end of terrorism,” said Mr Gill.

Maintaining that the use of surrendered terrorists and the provision of alternative identities to protect them are integral to anti-terrorist and anti-organised crime campaigns across the world, he said, these had been used extensively and openly in Punjab. The surrender ceremonies shown on television and the activities of the spotter were widely reported by the media, a section of which has suddenly become extraordinarily active in their condemnation of these policies.

Mr Gill held that unlike Northeast and Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab did not offer rewards and incentives for the surrender of terrorists, who were simply asked to return to their homes if they wished to give up arms. In exceptional cases of “high value assets” who could provide vital intelligence and inputs in the war against terrorism, such individuals had to be given new identities to protect them and their families from their former terror associates. “The present controversy, consequently, has no merit, and relates to tactics that were routinely used,” he added.

Mr Gill also held that he had always stated, emphatically and repeatedly, that the campaign against terrorism in Punjab was the most humane anti-terrorism campaign carried out against a significant terrorist movement anywhere in the world at any time and authoritative scholars of terrorism were now increasingly inclining to this view.

Mr Gill’s letter comes at a time when the controversy that erupted after Mr Virk addressed a Press Conference on Sunday last that “Sukhi” was a former terrorist and a cat who had helped the police.

Looking back, the number of terrorists who had surrendered or were released at the instance of the state in an endeavour to rehabilitate them in the mainstream ran in thousands.

In fact, the Justice AS Bains committee had recommended release 1036 persons involved in militancy in Punjab during the Akali government headed by Mr Surjit Singh Barnala. The previous Congress government headed by Mr Beant Singh, too, had ordered release of 986 persons, including 15 hardcore, 159 non hardcore and 812 other youths who were on peripheral lists of various militant organisations in the state.