Former Punjab director general of police Kanwar Pal Singh Gill, popularly known as KPS Gill, died on Friday in a Delhi hospital. He was 82.
Doctors at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital said, according to a report, Gill was suffering from end stage kidney failure and significant ischemic heart disease. He had been recovering from peritonitis.
Gill was admitted to the hospital on May 18 under the care of Dr DS Rana, head of the department of nephrology.
"He was suffering from end stage kidney failure and significant ischemic heart disease. Gill had been recovering from peritonitis but died of a sudden cardiac arrest caused by cardiac arrhythmia," Dr Rana said.
Advertisement
Gill also contributed for Outlook. Check out his articles here.
Gill was known as the "supercop" for his extraordinary work in Punjab, when he was serving as the DGP of Punjab from 1988 to 1990 and then again from 1991 until his retirement.
In former prime minister Indira Gandhi's regime, Gill commanded Operation Black Thunder to flush out militants hiding in the Golden Temple in 1998.
Gill, a Padma Shri awardee in 1989, hung up his boots as the DGP of Punjab in December 1995 after successfully dealing with the decade-long militancy there.
But he was back in action, having taken over as security advisor to the Gujarat government in 2002. In a state torn apart by horrific communal violence over two months, Gill had a difficult task cut out for him.
Advertisement
Apart from his contribution in Punjab, he also worked for the Chhattisgarh Government as a security adviser to help control Naxal activities in 2006.
Gill joined the Indian Police Service in 1958.
Apart from working for the Indian Police Service, Gill was also an author, editor, speaker, consultant on counter-terrorism, president of the Institute for Conflict Management and president of the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF).
(With agency inputs)
