Orissa govt in the dock over new DIG's 'sick'

For some strange reason this news article reminds of these
lines from a bollywood song.
Gabbar Singh ye kehke gaya
Jo Dar gaya woh mar gaya !

Orissa govt in the dock over new DIG's 'sick' leave
Rajaram Satapathy

BHUBANESWAR: It seems nothing is going right for the Orissa police. Two days after the 'accidental firing' death of south-western range DIG Jaswinder Singh, who was heading the anti-Naxal operation, the administration's helplessness to find an immediate replacement for Singh has become a talking point of the state capital.

The cowardance displayed by Singh's successor S K Nath, Rourkela-based special operations group (SOG) promoted to DIG rank, to take charge of the Maoist-infested region has put the government in the dock

The Orissa government had promoted Nath on Monday, the day Singh was killed, and had asked him to join duty immediately. But Nath reported sick.

"It is a crisis situation and the DIG is the commander of the team ,his claiming of illness has demoralised the men in khaki fighting the Maoists," said a senior official.

According to another official, Nath reporting sick could send a wrong signal that officers hailing from Orissa are preferring to be in safer places leaving the 'tough jobs' to those from outside the state.

Singh's death has raised doubts on the skills of the security personnel and the quality of training they are given.

Two PSOs — who were arrested on charges of killing Singh — had undergone three-month anti-extremist greyhound training at Malkangiri, but one of them had failed to maintain even the basic rule of keeping a cocked pistol pointed towards the ground or the sky.

Government on Wednesday decided to impart training for PSOs on handling advanced weaponry. DGP Amarananda Pattanayak said: "We have been giving training to PSOs. But in the wake of the latest incident, we want to introduce training modules that would make them well-conversant with different kinds of automatic and semi-automatic arms and ammunition."

The state government has also sent a team of crime branch officials to Koraput to probe Singh's death.


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/154383.cms