Punjab Police, which is already in the news for all the wrong reasons in the recent months, have been left even more red-faced.
Details submitted to the Punjab and Haryana High Court this week have revealed that the top echelons of the government and the state police have little faith in the security provided by the force.
From chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, his son and deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, Badal’s son-in-law and cabinet minister Adesh Pratap Singh Kairon, Sukhbir Badal’s brother-in-law Bikram Singh Majithia to director general of police (DGP) Sumedh Singh Saini, no one trusts Punjab Police for the innermost security ring around them.
All these biggies have one or more sections of the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) around them for their innermost security.
No doubt the Badal father-son duo and the DGP have been high on the target list of terrorists and enjoy Z-plus security, but that is hardly any solace for Punjab Police.
The state police personnel are around the VIPs, but it is the CRPF which dominates.
Guarded by paramilitary
Even the headquarters of the police force in Chandigarh is guarded round-the-clock by three sections of the CRPF along with its own personnel.
Punjab Congress president and Gurdaspur MP Partap Singh Bajwa said, “The Punjab government and its police chief have little trust in its own police when it comes to providing security and maintaining vigil.”
“The who’s who of the Punjab government and the state police have made it clear that their lives are more precious than those of its citizens, and its police force lacks capability to protect people,” he said.
Political rivals
Bajwa said the state government had “kept the CRPF for protecting itself and Punjab Police for wreaking vengeance on its political rivals”.
Punjab Police have drawn flak in recent months for assaulting a young woman in Tarn Taran in full public view, driving a teenaged rape victim to suicide by harassing her in Patiala district and not protecting its own officers.
An assistant sub-inspector in uniform was shot dead in Amritsar for protecting his daughter from a group of louts.