1958–1984 Gill joined the Indian Police Service in 1958 and was assigned to the
Assam and
Meghalaya states in
northeast India. In the early 1980s, Gill served as
Inspector General of Police in Assam. Vinayak Ganapathy, writing for rediff.com in 2003, noted Gill's no-nonsense style of functioning, which earned him the sobriquet 'supercop' in Punjab, made him "unpopular" among influential sections of the population in Assam and called him "a controversial figure". While Director General of police in Assam, Gill was charged with kicking a demonstrator to death, but was acquitted by the Delhi High Court. Gill lived in the northeast region of India for 28 years, returning to his home state of Punjab in 1984.
1984–1995 He has been called a 'supercop', for his work in Punjab, where he was the Director General of Police from 1988 to 1990 and then again from 1991 until his retirement from the Indian Police Service in 1995.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that from the 1980s Sikh separatists were guilty of targeted assassinations and attacks upon Hindu minorities in the Punjab state. HRW also reported that the government response resulted in further serious "human rights violations against tens of thousands". HRW report in 1991 described the security forces using "increasingly brutal methods to stem the militant movement, resulting in widespread human rights violations." Thousands of civilians and suspected militants were summarily executed in "staged"
encounter killings. Many "disappeared" while in police custody and thousands were detained without trial and subjected to torture. In what was reported as a successful operation, around 67
Sikhs surrendered and 4 were killed in the encounter. Gill stated that he did not want to repeat the mistakes made by Indian army during Operation Blue Star. In contrast to prior operations, minimum force was used under full public scrutiny. 1991 saw the peak of violence in Punjab, with more than 5000 reported killed. In 1992, the Indian government, intent on retaking Punjab from terrorism, appointed Gill as Chief of Police in Punjab. The police and army instituted a crackdown, and in 1993 the reported death toll was less than 500. In 1993,
The New York Times reported, the people of Punjab no longer feared the Sikh rebels or gangs, but instead feared the army and police. Patricia Gossman describes Gill as having a goal to eliminate, not merely arrest, militant Sikh leaders and members. KPS Gill also expanded a bounty system of rewards for police who killed known militants – a practice that encouraged the police to resort to extrajudicial executions and disappearances. The police were awarded financially for killing militants. India's central government created a special fund to finance Punjab's death squads, to pay the network of informants who provided information about militants and those suspected of supporting militants, and to reward police who captured and killed them. The reward was about ₹50,000 ($1,670). In an article in
India Today on 15 October 1992 it was written that the rush of claiming cash rewards is turning police into mercenaries. Besides the rewards for killing militants (annual outlay for the purpose: 1.13 crore [$338,000]), the department gives 'unannounced rewards' for killing unlisted militants. Gill retired from the IPS in 1995. and was its first president. Gill began advising governments on counter-terrorism matters. In 1999,
Delhi Police arrested Richhpal Singh, who was allegedly a
Babbar Khalsa suicide bomber on a mission to assassinate Gill. He arrived in
Delhi from
Pakistan on an
Afghan passport. Two kilograms of the explosive
RDX, four
detonators, and some 'live wire' were recovered from him. In an interview after this incident, Gill claimed that he had been a target of four or five such assassination attempts by Babbar Khalsa and other Sikh militant groups. Gill stated that he was not afraid.
2000–2004 In 2000 the government of
Sri Lanka sought his expertise as an anti-terrorism expert to help them draw a comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy against
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam He was approached by
Lakshman Kadirgamar who was the foreign minister of Sri Lanka After the defeat of
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam the similarity in the tactics used by Sri Lanka with the tactics used by Gill in Punjab was noted in an article published in
India Today Gill was appointed security adviser to the state of
Gujarat after
2002 Gujarat violence. He requested deployment of 1,000 extra specially-trained riot police from Punjab state to combat the violence. He was credited with controlling violence after his appointment. He arrived in Gujarat on 3 May 2002 He subsequently blamed a 'small group' of people for the Gujarat riots. In April 2003, there was a report that Gill was being considered for the position of governor of Assam. The Northeast Study Group, of which Gill is a member, had advised against assigning a state's previous security personnel to a state as governor. The
Chief minister of Assam agreed. An academic paper,
The Gill Doctrine: A Model for 21st Century Counterterrorism?, analysing his tactics in the successful fight against the Punjab insurgency was presented at the annual meeting of
American Political Science Association on 30 August 2007.
2005–2009: post-police career The government of
Chhattisgarh state in India appointed him a security adviser to help control
Naxalites in 2006. After an attack by Naxalites killed 55 policemen in 2007, Gill commented that the issue was one of underdevelopment in police forces. Gill also was president of the
Indian Hockey Federation; in March 2008, 15 years into his tenure, India's hockey team failed to qualify for the Olympics for the first time since 1928, and his position came under pressure. Narender Batra, one of 11 IHF vice-presidents, on resigning his position over the failure to qualify, accused Gill of "autocratic functioning", and called on the entire IHF staff to step down. Gill responded that the critics were professional mourners who were proud to run down the establishment, Alok Sinha, writing for
India Times, noted that the top two executives, Gill and the Secretary-General, did not even talk to one another. There were rumours that the secretary general of the IHF, leader of the anti-Gill faction, would also resign. Less than a month after the qualification failure, in April 2008, Aaj Tak Television reported that it had caught the Secretary-General of the IHF taking a bribe on camera to choose a player in a sting. There were renewed calls for Gill to resign. After the allegations of corruption, the
Indian Olympic Association (IOA) suspended the IHF indefinitely on 28 April 2008. IOA president
Suresh Kalmadi said in a press conference, "We have great respect for KPS Gill and it is not personal." ==Criminal conviction==