In a noble gesture that will go down into the annals of the state’s policing history, Punjab DGP Gaurav Yadav went out of his way to extend his greetings to a 1951-batch retired IPS officer, Jagjit Singh Bawa, on the occasion of his 100th birthday on Saturday.
Lauding Baba as a towering figure of the Punjab cadre IPS, the DGP said Bawa represents a generation of officers who laid the strongest foundations of professional, principled, and fearless policing. DGP Yadav shared his feelings about the old veteran on X.
Special Punjab DGP SS Srivastava and DIG Personnel Amneet Kondal met the veteran officer at his residence to personally convey the respect and greetings on behalf of the entire force.
Bawa was enlisted in the service on July 13, 1951, and served the state in various capacities, from ASP, SP, and SSP Ferozepur to DIG and IGP, before moving to the Centre on deputation as Director of the CBI on September 27, 1977. He retired from service on February 28, 1985, after being granted a one-year extension beyond the age of superannuation.
Bawa served as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Director during one of the most turbulent phases of the independent Indian governance during Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s regime. He still remembers how his life collided with key turning points in the life of the country, including the time he decided to pay his last respects to Indira Gandhi, when Delhi crowds clamoured for the Sikhs’ blood in the wake of her assassination in October 1984.
He vividly remembers that evening when he was repeatedly diverted from Khan Market, Lodhi Road, and other roads close to Gandhi’s residence. It was after the Delhi Police Commissioner sent a vehicle with an escort that Bawa could reach home in the dead of the night.
And how his visit at Gandhi’s residence made headlines and spread like wildfire.
Despite being 100-year-old, Bawa still recalls his first meeting with Indira Gandhi after her return to power in 1980 and how the former PM ordered him to disband the CBI. Bawa claimed he convinced the PM against that move, and thus the institution was saved.
He describes Indira Gandhi as “very authoritative, very decisive, very straightforward, and at times very harsh and very angry.”
Bawa served as CBI Director during Operation Bluestar in June 1984 and says he repeatedly told the PM, “Do whatever you want—impose curfew, stop supplies, do anything, but don’t send the Army or the police into the Golden Temple.”
Bawa says Indira Gandhi seemed to have been misled by certain agencies into believing that ‘Khalistan’ could only be stopped through military action inside the shrine. “She was deeply concerned about Punjab and wanted to save it at any cost,” all he says.
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