Kanwar Pal Singh Gill had admirers, haters alike

CHANDIGARH: With a larger than life persona, ‘Supercop’ Kanwar Pal Singh Gill never got a neutral view from people. They either worshipped him for his heroics or vilified him for “blatant use of force” to eliminate “innocent” Sikhs to crush militancy in Punjab that gripped the state from mid-1980s to mid-1990s.
While he earned accolades from the governments for his “deft” handling of terrorism in Punjab — which had its roots in the separatist movement of Khalistan, his approach often drew sharp criticism from the human rights bodies.They accused Gill of resorting to “extrajudicial methods” to deal with the militants.
His working style won him a legion of admirers in the police department in Punjab. Some of the young Indian Police Service (IPS) officers, who worked closely with him in the turbulent period of 1980s and 1990s in Punjab and later rose to become the director general of police (DGP) — a position that he held twice, profess to follow his doctrine to deal with the conflict situations.
He always scoffed at the suggestion of human right excesses in Punjab, saying there was no other way to stamp out terrorism from the state. In fact, he rewarded the policemen who took on the terrorists in Punjab with out-of-turn promotions.
Fond of Urdu poetry, especially Muhammad Iqbal, Gill adopted the same approach to other interests in his life, like being the president of the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) from 1994 to 2008 when the sports body was suspended by the Indian Olympic Association (IOA). His way of running the affairs of Indian hockey was said to be like heading the police department, leaving the players and coaches at the receiving end many times.
He sacked the coach of the national team right after India won a gold medal in the 1998 Bangkok Asian Games after a gap of 32 years, a move that flummoxed the hockey lovers. He held on to the post of IHF chief with the support of secretary general K Jyothikumaran despite growing clamour for their ouster from the national hockey body.
Even when Indian men’s hockey team failed to qualify for the Olympics for the first time in 2008, Gill remained unmoved despite the widespread criticism. Finally, IOA stepped in and suspended IHF, thus paving way for a new body Hockey India, which now runs the sport in the country.
However, as the IHF chief Gill managed to get a sponsorship for the Indian hockey team from a major oil lubricant company and also brought in foreign coaches like Gerhard Rach and Ric Charlesworth.