For 12 years, beginning 1980, I have been visiting Tarn Taran, Patti, Sirhali, Panjwar, Manachahal, Chowk Mahita -- some of the names which had hit the headlines as the hubs of free Khalistan, where the writs of the Chandigarh and Delhi governments ran for few daylight hours. The rest of the areas were ruled by terrorist satraps like Avtar Singh Brahma, Manvir Chehru, Manochahal and Paramjit Panjwar, still regarded as folk heroes. The Sikhs, like the Jews, don't forget their history.

In my job, I always travelled undercover, usually as a mediaperson. My profession had compelled me to stay aloof of the state machinery and establish rapport with the militant leaders. I was not a part of the killing machine.

Ajit Singh Sandhu and his colleagues, some of them missionaries in uniform, accepted their assigned jobs as frontline soldiers. They were told to shoot first. They were assured by their bosses in Chandigarh and Delhi that they would be taken care of. The unholy war had to be won.

Our political leaders, like their imperial masters, have been using the police and the administration for coercion in the name of preserving the unity and integrity of the country. Policemen are the most visible arm of the system, enforcing the political will. Our politicians do not require thinking policemen and discerning bureaucrats. The imperial jo hukum is still the order of the day. Why can't India opt for a modern policing system, instead of acquiring modern killing machines alone? Our policemen cannot be perpetually treated as enemies of the people.

Punjab is not the only theatre where the system has been perverted. The festering insurgency in the Northeast stands testimony to our bankrupt policies. We have simply asked policemen to do firefighting. Our system has been sending out wrong signals, saying that violence alone can force Delhi to yield.

Our system has not yet developed any yardstick of accountability for the political class. Their adventurism has generated several killing fields in the country and the neighbourhood (remember the IPKF?). The Northeast, the ravaged lands of Naxalbari, the Bihar plains and Andhra Pradesh bear testimony to their misdeeds. Everywhere, they press in the services of the forces to tackle the law and order problems arising out of their bankruptcy. The law is enforced and order is restored, at the cost of innocent lives.

Ajit Singh Sandhu was one of those dedicated and inspired policemen who carried the cross of his political masters in the belief that he was protecting his country. The first-generation militants, most of them folk heroes, believed in Khalistan as a panacea. They took up arms and the police, as an instrument of the State, acted in defence of the system.

Policemen were supposed to face terrorists as part of their professional duties. Their frontal and tactical engagements were well justified. But history bears testimony that hundreds of terrorists were not killed in frontal engagements and thousands of innocent youths were silently liquidated as part of `mass control measures'.

Sandhu, who had carried out the orders of his superiors and political masters and secured Tarn Taran, thought he was above the law. Many brave and honest officers like him had committed themselves and made Punjab safe at a colossal human cost. The yagnas performed by the perfidious politicians required human blood, and the terrorists and policemen obliged them.

However, immunity hits at the roots of our democratic system. Several Commissions later, the policemen still remain in political thrall. The politicians and their bureaucratic barnacles do not believe in the functioning of the policemen within the law. Policemen are asked to break the law in the name of protecting it. In the bargain, they protect the interests of politicians and jeopardise their own interests and the people's.

We salute Ajit Singh Sandhu, a martyr to the corrupt system, but exhort the nation to look into the concept of comprehensive accountability, especially for the political class. Independent India requires an independent policing policy and cannot depend on the rotten imperial legacy.

The author is a retired IB official who worked in Punjab

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.