Additional director general of police (law and order) Hardeep Singh Dhillon; Amritsar border zone inspector general of police Lok Nath Angra; and deputy inspector general Kunwar Vijay Partap Singh are camping in Gurdaspur to guide and overseeing the search parties.
On inputs received from different villages at different times, DIG Kunwar Vijay Partap Singh said: “So far, these have not led us to any suspected person but we’ll continue with the search and keep the traps. We are not taking any information lightly. People also should not spread rumours. Contact police or security forces only if the information is specific.”
The police and paramilitary forces combed all villages around the Tibri military station, which is said to be the target of the Pakistani terrorists. They also looked inside sugarcane fields and abandoned buildings, which could be the possible hideouts of the intruders.
The locals are a little scared, since the administration has advised them to stay indoors after 6pm. Fearing accidental encounter with Pakistani terrorists, farmers do not venture into fields even during day. Since security personnel look at all passers-by with suspicion, many villagers now avoid crossing the checkpoints.
People have started asking whether Pakistani terrorists are for real or a rumour.
NIA MAY ASK INTERPOL TO ISSUE BLACK CORNER NOTICE FOR IDENTIFYING BODIES OF FOUR SLAIN ATTACKERS
From page 01 NEW DELHI: If the arms and equipment recovered from the Pathankot attackers are anything to go by, they had come prepared for a big battle.
Nine days after the airbase came under attack, HT accessed the full list of 29 items recovered from the attackers – including 559 rounds of 7.62 mm calibre and four AK-47 assault rifles with 30 magazines. The registration numbers of the Russian rifles have been identified.
Counter-terror officials have also recovered three pistols with seven magazines and 47 live rounds, besides a grenade launcher. Sources said a motivational note – stating ‘Jaishe-Mohammad Zindabad’ – was also found. So far, over two dozen grenades have been destroyed by the National Security Guard’s bomb disposal squad.
The militants also came equipped with items to handle medical emergencies and technical issues. According to the list, they possessed a wire cutter, a pair of pliers, a big knife, a multi-tool box, a wire tape, a first-aid box, a knife pad, four painkiller injections, a syringe, a vial of eye drops, seven painkiller tablets, 21 lozenges, two bandages, two bottles of Betadine, two combat rucksacks, binoculars, a mobile phone and two damaged notes of `500.
All grenades brought by the terrorists have reportedly been destroyed through ‘controlled explosions’. “We have recovered a piece of blown-up grenade with markings that may help us trace its origin,” an official said. Many items must have been destroyed during the attack, he added.
A home ministry statement said the NIA also plans to ask the Interpol to issue a Black Corner notice for identifying the bodies of four slain terrorists, and a Blue Corner notice to trace conspirators in the case.
Cop in the news mostly for wrong reasons
CONTROVERSIAL The upwardly-mobile, politically well-connected Gurdaspur SP, who was abducted and then let off by Pak terrorists day before Pathankot attack, is facing bigamy and sexual harassment charges
He would offer to protect them (widows posted as constables in the SSP’s office). When one of them rebuffed him, he transferred her. JATINDER SINGH AULAKH, Amritsar police commissioner
CHANDIGARH: Salwinder Singh, 52, the controversial Gurdaspur superintendent of police (SP) who is being questioned by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) after he was abducted and let off by Pakistani terrorists a day before the Pathankot airbase attack, does not have many admirers in the state police.
Known for his “closeness” to Sucha Singh Langah, former Akali minister from Gurdaspur, Salwinder’s other claim to fame, or rather infamy, has been his colourful “extra-curricular activities”, for which he is facing two inquiries.
Salwinder started his career as an assistant sub-inspector (ASI) in 1986-87. In 1991, when he was training at the Punjab Police Academy, Phillaur, for promotion to the post of sub-inspector, other trainees recall that he allegedly got involved in a scandal with a woman employee in the principal’s office. “But no action was taken against him. However, all other trainees had to bear the brunt of his actions,” a fellow trainee said.
“That is the first time he got noticed. Salwinder, however, rose sharply through the ranks, joining the Punjab police service (PPS) in 2006, thanks to his glib tongue that state politicians fall for,” recalls a senior officer who worked with him.
CLOSE TO LANGAH
Very soon, he became closely associated with Langah. The latter remained a minister twice in the Parkash Singh Badal cabinet, first in 1997-2002 and then in 2007-12. Last year, Langah was convicted and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment by a Mohali court in a case of disproportionate assets, but the conviction was later suspended by the Punjab and Haryana high court. The ex-minister has a 100-acre farmhouse in the border belt, not very far from where the SP was travelling the night he was abducted. He also reportedly played a crucial role in the arrest of Khalistan Commando Force (KCF) chief Wassan Singh Zaffarwal from Majitha in April 2001.
Originally from Amritsar, Salwinder remained SHO of several police stations in the border belt before being posted as deputy superintendent of police (DSP) in Batala and later in Jalandhar and Amritsar. He was posted in Gurdaspur as SP (headquarters) in February 2014. His proximity to Langah was known to every SSP who remained posted in Gurdaspur since then. “It is quite common in Punjab for senior officers to hear that their SPs are so-and-so’s ‘men’, so it is not surprising that Langah called up the director general of police (DGP) when Salwinder was transferred, pending inquiry against him, two days before the abduction,” the senior police officer said. The complaint of sexual harassment against Salwinder began as an
anonymous letter sent in mid-2015 to then Gurdaspur senior superintendent of police (SSP), who forwarded it to then Batala SSP Inderbir Singh for a preliminary inquiry. The women mentioned in the complaint corroborated the statements, following which the complaint was forwarded to the DGP for further action. An inquiry was marked to the state-level anti-sexual harassment cell headed by inspector general (IG) Gurpreet Deo.
“The complainants’ statements had been recorded and we recommended that he be immediately transferred for a fair inquiry. The SP was to be called for his statement when this (abduction) happened,” says Deo.
IN TROUBLED WATERS
The complainants, five widows posted as constables in the SSP’s office, were allegedly being harassed by SP (headquarters) Salwinder. They had been inducted into the police on compassionate grounds. “In their statements recorded by the anti-sexual harassment committee, they alleged that Salwinder used to ask them to call him at odd/late hours. He would offer to protect them in case they needed assistance and also offered to help them retain their positions in the SSP’s office. When one of them rebuffed him, he transferred her and then offered to get her back,” said Jatinder Singh Aulakh, police commissioner, Amritsar, who is a member of the committee.
To make matters worse for the SP, a fact-finding inquiry was instituted by the Punjab DGP on January 8 after a Tanda-based woman accused Salwinder of bigamy. Dhanpreet Kaur, Hoshiarpur SSP, is conducting the probe. Tanda resident Karanjit Kaur claimed that she exchanged vows with Salwinder in a Jalandhar gurdwara in 1994 and has a son from the marriage. She alleged that he married her despite being already married.
Salwinder, who has a daughter and a son, is considered to be “very religious.” He visits the dargah at Ajmer Sharif a couple of times every year. “It is my God who has saved me. I have come back from where very few men return alive,” he said during a television interview last week after the abduction.
