K P S Gill: The superior cop

K P S Gill was never armed with more than his swagger stick. Yet, he always fought to win

In his passing away, as in his life, Kanwar Pal Singh (K P S) Gill continues to challenge your learning and established notions. For example, the first principle of obituary in any journalism school: Never be chronological. I don’t know how to keep to that writing about Mr Gill, or Gill saab as we would call him. My first meeting with him is an abiding memory. 

It was in early 1981 when I had just come to cover the Northeast, then mostly and aptly described as being “in flames”. He wasn’t D-G, Assam Police, yet, just an I-G, but in