Dhillon Sa'ab - a tribute

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I was deeply saddened by the news of the demise of Mr. Kripal Singh Dhillon. A very amiable man who not only was a brilliant police officer of 1953 vintage, he, besides being erudite, was also a very socially conscious person.


Though of Madhya Pradesh cadre, he was picked up by none other than the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to hold the difficult post of Director General of Punjab Police during the disturbed years of the state. After retirement he came and settled down in Bhopal where he was picked up to function as the Vice Chancellor of the local Barkatullah University.


His intellectual inclinations prompted him to run the Saturday Club at the MP Academy of Administration – a kind of a think tank. He frequently organized lectures on topics of topical interests by experts in the Saturday Club. His intellectual proclivities led him to author several books including an autobiography.
Likewise, it was the initiative of Dhillon Sa’ab and few others like Mahesh Buch, Arun Pandya, ON Shrivastava and my sister Deepika Bagchi that the Bhopal Citizens’ Forum was established and became, in course of time, a force to reckon with in the city of Bhopal. Around the turn of the Century they became conscious of the deteriorating quality of life in Bhopal and established the Forum as a pressure group to highlight the mounting civic problems of the city. Because I wrote about them in the Hindustan Times he co-opted me also in the Forum.
He was of the same batch as my brother who, unlike him, was of the IAS of MP cadre but both were trained together and naturally were very good friends. Dhillon Sa’ab, indeed, was a friend of our entire family including my two deceased brothers and their wives. Soft spoken and very pleasant in his conduct he endeared himself to all of us – just as to everyone else.
Now that he is gone Bhopal has lost a towering personality who was a sincere well-wisher of the town and its people. One can now only hope and pray that his benevolent soul rests in peace.