Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

I wish we will have more people like KPS Gill in our country: Sitaram Yechury

In June 2017, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury delivered a speech at a memorial meeting for former Punjab police chief KPS Gill in New Delhi, praising the cop's fearless and forthright views while calling him a 'nek insaan'.

I find it very difficult to pay my homage to Mr. Gill, because there’s a very peculiar contradiction. It’s not very often that communists pay homage to police officers, but we are always often seen to be on the opposite sides of the fence, which I think is an unfortunate perception, because it’s not correct, because what was referred to us is what my perception of Mr. Gill has always been, as we say in our Hindustani, a naik insaan, I mean, like the naik insaan who searched to lay the shilanyas for the Golden Temple, and Mian Pir was found to do that, a Muslim Pir. Mr. Gill was one of those who stands out as a very, very unique police officer, and I wish he was around today to give, in his own inimitable style, a bit of advice to those in uniform who keep making political statements unsolicited today, and he would tell them, because I’d never seen him ever make any political statement while he was in uniform, or even otherwise while he was serving, except through his messages for his own comrades who were killed in the battle, in the fight against terrorism.

Mr Arun Shourie was talking about Mr Anand in Tarn Taran district. My association with Gill Sahib begins then, when I was a youth, part of the youth movement in the country. One of our youth leaders, Roor Singh Gill, was one of the first of the victims in Tarn Taran, who was shot down, I mean, in open daylight in front of many people, as a measure of defiance that the terrorists wanted to establish in Punjab, saying that nobody can stop them.

And when Roor Singh Gill died, Tarn Taran was exactly like what Mr Arun Shourie was describing, that it was about to go, if it went, the cluster of districts would have gone, and if that went, Punjab wouldn’t be part of India today. And God forbid, I mean, what else would have followed after that? But he was the first of our comrades who died, I mean, the first among the 200-odd of the CPM people who were killed in the battle. So, these were the comrades who were fighting, as Gill Sahib used to say, you are fighting without the uniform, we are fighting with the uniform.

And that association went on for a long time, I mean, I can go on giving so many instances. Go to a conference, Gill Sahib........

© ThePrint