The Heroic Tales of AGTF......by Gurjot Singh Kaler

Punjab, our beloved border state, has always faced innumerable challenges since time immemorial. Despite facing the agony, pain, and turmoil of extreme hardships at the time of India’s partition, Punjab has always managed to be a role model and an apostle of peace, harmony, cooperation, and peaceful co-existence for the outside world. 

The pristine land of gurus, saints, and sages has traditionally been the toast of the entire nation in terms of the harbinger of the Green Revolution and our hardworking farmers have always worked laboriously towards contributing their sweat, soul, and toil towards the food basket of India. 

The hard work, sincerity, and determination of the native Punjabi populace have rightly become a part of legendary folklore across the length and breadth of the entire world as they have successfully carved a deep niche for themselves in every sphere of work across the spectrum of opportunities available to them. 

However, in the past few years, the saintly reputation of Punjab has become tarnished owing to the growing menace of gang wars amongst the hard-core criminals who have felt emboldened enough to hold the state’s inhabitants to their illegal demands of ransom through their immoral whims and fancies.

 This gangster culture which threatens to tear away the law and order machinery and blatantly throw away to the winds the social and moral fabric of Punjab is a real existential threat that needs our immediate, urgent, and undivided attention if the house has to be set into order.

To effectively tackle a peculiar and extraordinary challenge like this, the need of the hour is to devise and strategize upon extraordinary solutions. And one such commendable solution in recent times has been the inception of AGTF by the Punjab Police.

Today, the word AGTF instills a sense of utmost fear and dreadfulness in the heart, minds, and souls of even the most wanted so-called gangsters and criminal elements of Punjab. 

The glorious and resilient organization of Punjab Police is historically made up of passionate, disciplined, and dedicated brave hearts who have earlier also faced tough challenges like terrorism and defeated the inimical forces by all counts. 

So, with the AGTF in place, it appears to be just a matter of time that very soon, not even a single gangster will be able to raise his/her ugly head in Punjab. The anti-social elements cannot be allowed to give design to their nefarious agendas and willfully disrupt the peaceful atmosphere of the border state. 

It is simply impossible to let the writ of criminals run large and tragic incidents like the recent gruesome day-light murder of singer Sidhu Moosewala as a part of a gang war between the gangsters cannot be condoned by any measure of explanations. 

The AGTF, an acronym for Anti-Gangster Task Force, has now become a household name in Punjab with the recent police encounter in which 2 dreaded gangsters were neutralized by the brave police personnel of the AGTF. On 20th July 2022, the police personnel of AGTF located upon the whereabouts of 2 gangsters whose names were wanted in the case of the murder of Sidhu Moosewala, and they were found to be hiding in a secluded and abandoned farmhouse in rural Amritsar.

 As soon as the police reached the spot and cordoned off the area, the accused began to indiscriminately fire upon the AGTF’s raiding party. Four police personnel were grievously injured along with a media person. 

Repeated announcements by the police to the gangsters to surrender their weapons fell on their deaf ears and they were finally gunned down by the bullets as they blatantly refused to cooperate under the legal laws of the land. It should be a lesson of learning for all the remaining gangsters/ criminals in Punjab that they will not be allowed to give vent to their illegal agendas of running extortion rackets and committing murders and if they do not surrender or refuse to mend their devious ways, there will not be any other option left for them but to choose the pathway of death as happened in the case of Jagroop Singh @roopa and Manpreet Singh @Mannu.

The Honorable Chief Minister (CM) of Punjab, Shri Bhagwant Mann, has shown exemplary leadership in taking the bull by the horns and publicly committing to the masses in his televised address that no criminal will be spared unless and until they fall in line with the rule of the law. When the political willpower is strong as reflected through the CM’s words of caution to the gangsters, it automatically sends shivers down the spine of even the hardened criminals and can force them to think twice before committing any act of crime.

 At the same time, the words of appreciation showered upon the brave police officers of the AGTF were an ample proof of the Chief Minister’s trust and faith in the abilities of the police personnel who risked their lives in order to give effect to this deadly operation. Certainly, it acts as a big morale-booster for our men in uniform who are always ready to rise, perform and protect the land of Punjab against any overt or covert threats. The Director General of Police (DGP), Punjab, Shri Gaurav Yadav, IPS, has displayed a stellar role in motivating the police force to perform their duties without any fear or favour. As the head of the top brass of illustrious Punjab Police, the chief has practically proven that ‘Where there is a will, There is a way’. 

The AGTF has already made an indelible impact upon the psyche of the criminals and there is no way for the criminals to escape the clutches of the law. It is pertinent to mention and highlight the courageous heritage of the AGTF here. The roots of the AGTF were laid down a few years back under the name of Organised Crime Control Unit (OCCU) which has now been rechristened as AGTF. 

However, the spirit of the officers serving in the august organization has always been upto-the-mark and they have consistently performed as a unified team with integrity, honesty and determination to defy all impossible odds in discharging their purpose of duty.

 The writer of this article was fortunate to have the unique opportunity to work closely and brush shoulders with the formidable officers of the AGTF when he was posted there as a part of the team OCCU under the leadership of Shri Nilabh Kishore, IPS as the IGP-OCCU and Shri Dinkar Gupta, IPS as the head of the intelligence wing. 

At that time, the unit had successfully overcome the challenge of locating and neutralizing dreaded gangsters like Vicky Gounder and Ankit Bhadu who had wrongly assumed larger-than-life image through their notorious social media posts and had created terror through their acts of omission and commission. 

It is important to recognize and salute the courage of officers like ADGP Pramod Ban, IPS, who, as the current head of the AGTF, has taken an oath of moral responsibility to clean the mess and personally responsibly supervise every operation. 

Similarly, officers like Shri Gurmeet Chauhan, IPS, as AIG-AGTF, are an inspiration to the police fraternity who have always risen to the occasion to perform their sense of duty most professionally and reliably. A very special mention also needs to be made of Shri Bikram Singh Brar, PPS, DSP-AGTF, whose name has become almost synonymous with the working of the AGTF. 

He is the proud son of a former brave police officer, Shri Baldev Singh Brar who had joined police in 1965 as an inspector and was martyred in action during the terrorism days in Punjab when he was posted as Superintendent of Police- Detective (SP-D) in Patiala on 19th August 1988 along with SSP, Sital Das. DSP Bikramjit Singh Brar has certainly lived upto his brave lineage through his actions of valour, commitment and courage.

 The dynamic officer is credited to be the working encyclopedia of gangsters in Punjab and has played a pivotal role in almost all the major operations against the gangsters. He is the only officer from Punjab to have won three police medals for gallantry coupled with Union Home Minister’s medal for excellence in the investigation. 

The task of the AGTF is crystal-clear. The men-in-khakhi will not rest unless and until every gangster is uprooted from the soil of Punjab. Long live the police brave-hearts and their heroic tales of fortitude and resilience! Godspeed.

July 27, 2022