NIA grills Salwinder Singh again and again

The discredited Punjab Police Officer, Salwinder Singh, continues to be the focus of Pathankot Airbase terror inquiry on account of his misleading answers and because of his giving away his official car to the Pakistani terrorists for their storming the airbase with that State police patronage. Salwinder Singh was subsequently stated to have been compromised by shady Pakistani Call Centre run by the Inter-Services Intelligence of Islamabad which has engaged young girls with sweet voice to lure the Indians serving in the borders. Salwinder is already stated to be a bigamist, with a woman surfacing with their 16-year-old son as his second wife. Salwinder is therefore a good target of intelligence officials who want to ferret out sleazy details. There were three people travelling in Salwinder's official car at the time it was seized by the Pakistani terrorists. They were his cook, Madan Gopal, a friend and jeweller, Rajesh Verma. The friend's throat was slashed with a knife and he was admitted to hospital. Salwinder's party was returning after visiting a pir's darga when the car was hicjacked, according to Punjab police officer. The National Investigation Agency has since interrogated the darga organiser Somraj, who said clearly that it was for the first time that he had seen the Police Officer. Salwinder Singh, on the other hand, told the investigating authorities that he was a regular visitor to the Darga. The NIA wants to settle the matter by interrogating all the three -- Salwinder Singh, Madan Gopal and Somraj -- together. The NIA obviously wants to establish whether Salwinder Singh, former Superintendent of Police of Gurdaspur district, was telling the truth or whether he had been helping out Pakistani terrorists using his top position in the Punjab police regularly. There was terror incident in Gurdaspur district also when he was the district SP. Salwinder at present is Assistant Commandant of the Armed Battalion of the Punjab police based in Pathankot. The fact that the Darga organiser said that he saw the Police Officer for the first time on New Year's night proves the point that Salwinder had actively been conniving with the Pakistani terrorist masterminds across the border. Salwinder had already been grilled in the NIA headquarters in New Delhi. Apparently the polygraph tests that were supposed to be conducted on him had not been done. The common man is put to all kinds of hardship during travel. But Salwinder Singhs get saluted all the way. The common man is compulsorily photographed on the way to New Delhi in the trains and elsewhere. But Salwinder Singhs are not checked and instead saluted at Army and Air Force bases also. This is an aspect that the NIA has to look into. The Salwinder Singh incident proves that the Army, Air Force and Navy bases and jurisdiction should be out of bounds for not only the civilians but also the civilian authorities as well. At Mareidpalli in Hyderabad, the AOC centre is sought to be kept out of bounds for the civilians. By the same token, why throw open Army and Air bases for Salwinder Singh, even if an advanced intimation is given for the use of the jurisdiction by the civilian authorities. The NIA should come out with effective curbs in terms of security all over the country. The common man fights the terrorists once he identifies them and pays with his life. Top Punjab police officers plead with the terrorists for life and give them the official blue-beaconed car!