K. P. S. Gill
Director General of Punjab Police who led Operation Black Thunder II and the counter-insurgency campaign of 1991–95. Credited by supporters with ending the insurgency and criticised by rights groups for its abuses.
Kanwar Pal Singh Gill was born in 1934 in Ludhiana and joined the Indian Police Service. He served in Assam and then in Punjab.
As Director General of the Punjab Police from 1988 to 1990 and 1991 to 1995 he led the campaign against the Sikh militancy, including Operation Black Thunder at the Harmandir Sahib in 1988. Under his command the police were accused of thousands of fake encounters, disappearances and secret cremations, documented by Jaswant Singh Khalra and human rights groups; to many Sikhs he is remembered for that.
He was convicted in 1996 of sexually harassing an IAS officer. He died in 2017.
