Two days ago the Prime Minister was in Punjab. In the company of the Punjab Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister, Mr Modi meditated on the Indus Water Treaty, Pakistan, black money, counterfeit currency, terrorism etc. His presence sought to impart a kind of certificate of good conduct to the Punjab Government. On Sunday morning the criminals at Nabha mocked at all these claims of good governance and “law and order”. The sheer audacity of the Nabha escapees and their accomplices in believing that they could carry out such a jailbreak is an advertisement of sort. The jailbreak was virtually a cake walk. The only saving grace is the immediate arrest of one of the escapees, Harminder Mintoo, of the Khalistan Liberation Force.What stood out clearly at Nabha was the cowardice of the jail staff and mismanagement of the so-called high-security jail. How easy it was for the gangsters to trick the jail staff into believing in their story. As the criminals opened indiscriminate firing, the jail staff failed to retaliate and stop the escapees in their tracks. But no one should be surprised at this meek surrender. It reflects a corrupt jail management culture in which prisoners are allowed access to mobiles, internet and drugs. This will not change with the suspension of a couple of jail officials. Post escape, the Punjab Police brought upon itself additional infamy when they fired at a car, killing an innocent young woman. Here they did not have the excuse of shooting in self-defence. All said and done Sunday was a bad day for the Punjab Police and its pretension to professionalism.By making it easier for prisoners to come out on parole the Akali-BJP government has invited the charge of doing it to use criminals in elections. Such is the credibility of the government that soon after the Nabha jailbreak Capt Amarinder Singh immediately suspected high-level complicity, while Home Minister Sukhbir Badal saw a Pakistani conspiracy to revive terror. Why should Pakistan’s dirty games impair the police capacity to act and do their job? All recent high-profile cases of murder have remained unsolved. None of the countless SITs have yielded any conviction. The sorry spectacle at Dinanagar, Pathankot and now Nabha should unnerve not just the citizens of Punjab but also our national security establishment.