I am walkaholic and my evening walk comprises of three rounds of the inner road of Sector II chandigrah along this road fall residences of some very senior retired Punjab police officers and politicians and fall of them have many gunmen at their disposal I don not know the purpose of their deployment as most of the time I see these security personnel sitting outside the houses playing cards and chatting none of them is in his uniform and all appear physically unfit to perform active security duty. In fact many of the during the summers can be seen sitting the laws in their baniyans and kacchas trying to beat the heat. Each time I cross these houses I wonder who will put an end to this practice slaves under the garb of security.

Last week’s announcement that the government had withdrawn gunmen from various former police officers politicians and other wannabes was a bit of refreshing news. My heartiest congratulations to the Deputy CM Punjab and the Punjab DGP for taking this step to undo what it had promoted during its last term. This exercise of withdrawing excessive police personal attached with the high and mighty besides offering more manpower to police will help curtail the growth of an obnoxious class of people who call themselves the very important punjabies.

KEEPING AMERICA SECURE: US-based Sikh advocacy group and education fund last week announced that the metropolitan police department of washington DC would from now on be allowing Sikh Americans to keep their articles law enforcement indeed in the fight against the ongoing racial discrimination in America but this very discrimination had led to the formation of Akal security one of the largest private security firms in the world I know this for a fact because I vividly remember my meeting with Akal’s co-founder Gurtrj Singh Khalsa in Esponala new mexico USA Gurtej a white American Sikh had converted to Sikhism in 1969 after coming into contact with Sikh preacher Harbhajan singh yogi. As per the story Gurtej singh who was serving in the police department had been served an ultimatum by the chief of police in 1979 to either drop the turban and the beard or leave the police a distraught gurtej had then gone to Harbhajan singh yogi for advice. Why do you want to say yes sir to all these chaps all your life yogi had asked go and start your own agency where you can hire all these guys. He had instructed gurtej Akal meaning the timeless one had henceforth started its operation from gurtej living room with $1,200 borrowed from friends Dya Singh was the other founder we were obviously looking for the most powerful name and Akal Gurtej had said while explaining the reason for the name. when I visited the Akal head office in Espanola in 2005 in spite of it having orders worth over a billion US dollars I was surprised to see its operation being run out of mobile homes spread over a few acres some of the early assignments in Espanola santa fe and Albuquerque in the old town it is said that merchants insisted that only Sikhs patrol the area Akal proving true to its name today is a multimillion dollar company and the largest judicial security contractor in the united states it protects vital facilities in 40 states and 20 countries had been ranked as one of the top 100 civilian contactor in the united states by Government Executive Magazine Akal story is a true example of how adversity was converted into opportunity.

Punjabi by nature is a fortnightly column. The columnist is a Punjab based author and journalist.