The intelligence officials remaining unaware of the dreaded criminal Gurvinder alias Perminder who played an instrumental role in the audacious jail break in Punjab taking shelter in Dehradun reflect poorly on the functioning of the intelligence department.

Besides, the role of police has come under negative glare too in connection with the incident. It is learnt that the Raipur police did not launch any verification drive to locate the suspicious elements residing as tenants. The cops when asked chose to pass the buck to the house owners, saying that it was their responsibility to inform the police stations about the persons they are allowing to stay in their houses on rent.

Notably, the dreaded criminal Gurvinder alias Perminder, an inmate of the Nabha jail, had escaped while he was receiving treatment in a hospital after gunning down a constable. later, he took shelter in his friend Sunil’s rented home in Danda lakhond in Raipur near Dehradun.

It is learnt that the local police had not conducted verification of those residing in the house as tenants. It is clear too in the aftermath of Monday’s arrests and seizure of arms and explosives from the house that the intelligence officials were totally unaware of the anti-national activities going on there in full swing.  

Police team while   raiding  the locked house  seized cash worth two lakhs,  firearms, bomb-making ingredients, battery cells, iron bullets, mobile phones, chargers, iron rods, electronic compact scales (measuring weight), pliers, scrub driver and many others.

It has also been revealed that Gurvinder had left Dehradun five days before the Nabha jail incident occurred.

It is also clear that much -vaunted community policing that seeks to involve the locals in the information-gathering network is yet to strike roots in the State.

Critics say that the concept begotten by the state DGP MA Ganapathy is likely to come a cropper unless the cops are forced to shed their tendency to keep the common people at arms’ length.