J&K Governor acts tough on top cops

New Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik has acted tough against the top brass of the state police after he received a report from the state chief secretary that none of the senior police officers has taken responsibility for the recent ransacking of houses of the terrorists in South Kashmir and arrest of their family members. The incident took an ugly turn when the terrorists launched reprisal attacks on the family members of dozens of policemen and kidnapped them. The Raj Bhavan  intervened and asked the top brass of the state police to desist from such actions on ground.

The Raj Bhavan  had reportedly intervened and asked the police to release all the relatives and family members of militants in South Kashmir and instructed the police chief through the state chief secretary to fix accountability. According to highly placed official sources, the then state police chief S.P. Vaid and the then state intelligence chief had told the state administration that all such decisions have been taken by the security grid without keeping them in the loop. They had told the state chief secretary that he should instead take-up the matter with anti-insurgency grid of South Kashmir, as most of the decisions are taken by the Rashtriya Rifles (RR). Angered by the response of the two top police officers, the state chief secretary reportedly recommended their removal and said that instructions should go down even the camp level in South Kashmir that no one is above law or the prescribed norms of the government.

The Governor first removed the state intelligence chief Abdul Gani Mir and replaced with him Dr B. Srinivas. S.P. Vaid was removed late Thursday night by Dilbagh Singh who took over as the acting chief of J&K Police. Reports said that his predecessor S.P. Vaid had a hot exchange of words with senior bureaucrats including the state chief secretary and state home secretary.

According to officers privy to the developments, S.P. Vaid was not happy the way the state chief secretary has been intervening in the matters of the police. As reported by this newspaper, the new State Chief Secretary B.V.R. Subrahmanyam had a strained relationship with former Governor N.N. Vohra since he had refused to share power with Raj Bhavan  aparently on the instructions of the Union government.