Hoshiarpur (August 03, 2011): The recovery of two AK-47 rifles and a .38 bore revolver from the Amritsar residence of the arrested Hoshiarpur SP (D) Randhir Singh Uppal, has once again opened up the Pandora Box.
The Dal Khalsa has made a fervent appeal to the Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court to take suo moto notice of the illegal weapons being recovered from the possession of serving officers. The organization is of the view that since a large cache of illegal weapons was still lying with select serving policemen, only a judicial probe can bring the truth on surface.
Party President H S Dhami said there was need to get to the bottom of the matter as the recent recovery of illegal arms from the middle rank officer was just a tip of the iceberg. In the recent times, similar cache of illegal arms was recovered from Tarn Taran SHO, DSP of Chandigarh police and policemen from Mansa area.
During the period of militancy, a huge cache of AK-47 rifles besides ammunition and explosive material were seized from militants by the police. Taking advantage of its unlimited power, a section of the policemen concealed the weapons and never brought them on record, he alleged. He said the political leadership in Punjab irrespective of party has become captive of the police and civil bureaucracy. “Neither the present nor the former chief minister has guts to hold an inquiry against the discredited police higher ups; hence the only hope left was with the judiciary”. He claimed that a large number of weapons were siphoned off by police officers illegally to arm the Black Cats of the Punjab Police either to liquidate the Sikh militants or to commit crimes in their name so as to give bad to the movement.
Dhami said these weapons were never registered with police stations by the officials concerned, who enjoyed unbridled powers.
During the SAD-BJP government in Punjab from 1997 to 2002, the then ADGP crime J S Chahal ordered the registration of these weapons with the police station concerned but to no avail. In his memo he instructed all SSP’s to submit a certificate after personally examining the arms and ammunition seized from Sikh militants between 1/1/85 to 31/12/96.
To drive his point home, he quoted the report published by leading weekly English “India Today” in its 29 Sep 1997 issue titled “Weapons at large” that revealed that SSP’s of all districts barring few were hesitant to give the certificate on the argument that “it will open the Pandora Box and many middle or senior officers would land in problem”.
The lives of people in Punjab was in danger as these weapons could be (mis)used either by planting on Sikh youths to implicate them in false militant related cases or to mint money through extortions and robbery, he said, adding that the registration of such arms must be carried out with the police station concerned by the state government immediately.