Team Nishan interacted with Sh.H.P.Bhatnagar, Retd.DG BSF at his residence in Delhi on the issue of fake encounters by police forces and his own experience in this regard. he felt the biggest impediment in effective policing was nothing but corruption of police leadership and professional bankcruptcy. He was vocal that as an ASP he used to ride bicycle, that’s what he could afford within his legitimate means but today’s police officers, its their greed for money that has runied the profession of policing and criminalised it.
Team Nishan corresponded with a former IPS officer from the 1954 batch from Rajasthan cadre. During his tenure as IG BSF at the Punjab frontier in the mid eighties he took an outright stand against fake encounters by Punjab Police and issued clear cut directions to BSF troops deployed on Internal Security Duty in the state of Punjab, to not to be party to use the illegal act of the fake encounters to eliminate suspected sikh terrorists .The former cop was very vocal on his stand against the policy of “Bullet for bullet” that had added further fuel to the fire. We questioned him as to why he was against encounter killings, was it his religious upbringing or something else? He shrugged his shoulders and smiled and gave his answer in very straight words “I knew my job very well and had complete belief on abilities and training of my men and wanted to do my own job of a Police officer, rather then usurping the role of judiciary, how can we as police officers become judges.” We try usurping these roles when we lack in our own professional competence and wish to demonstrate our performance of being effective. When asked him what did he mean by “Police leadership having become secular”, He had a hearty laugh and put it very softly”Seculra means they all believe in only one religion and that is religion of money. All your problems are due to this root cause.