For safety, let security go

This business of security being given to VIPs, and those who are vulnerable for various reasons, and it being withdrawn, as happened with the late popular Punjabi singer, reminded me of when I was posted in Chandigarh as the Resident Editor of a major daily newspaper. This was in 1984, a few days after Operation Bluestar. The paper in question then had no editor in Chandigarh, and since Punjab was brimming with news, I was moved from Mumbai to the Union Territory.

It was a perilous time in the region and like many other editors, I was provided with security. I was also given some basic guidelines to follow in order to keep myself as safe as possible. One was fairly straight forward, to not open my door if I was not expecting anybody. Two, was to take a different route while driving to my office (which was in Chandigarh’s Industrial Area). The third bit of advice was the scariest: If I was in the open, taking a walk, for instance, and I heard gunshots, I should start running in a zig-zag fashion.

I was later shown the efficacy of this manoeuvre when I was taken by a young police officer to a shooting range (tragically, he was killed by terrorists while exercising in a stadium in Patiala, but that is another story). A target had been set up of a wooden man-like structure, which was made to move rapidly while zig-zagging. An expert marksman was stationed a short distance away, who was instructed to shoot at the moving target. He was not able to hit it, though he could easily find his mark on a stationary target. The lesson was driven home to me. I had inherited a licensed .22 revolver from my father, which I kept loaded under my pillow at night. As I said, those were scary days.

When I was still posted in Chandigarh, Julio Ribeiro, an old friend from my Mumbai days, was made the Punjab Police chief. It was an inspired move. He helped turn the tide against terrorism. Two others also played a crucial role: Chief Minister Surjit Singh Barnala, and Chief Secretary P Vaishnav, a Gujarati IAS officer who spoke fluent Punjabi. This was secularism at its very best: A Roman Catholic originally from Goa, a Sikh, and a Hindu. They represented the best of India, at perhaps the country’s most perilous time since Independence.

But I remember Ribeiro for another reason. He ordered that my security be withdrawn. Curious, I asked him why.

‘My dear fellow,’ he replied, ‘the terrorists are not interested in killing you. They have their eyes on getting the weapon of your security guard, and if you come in their way, they won’t hesitate in gunning you down!’

I quickly agreed to have my security taken away.