IN a region where security personnel are trained to keep emotions aside, Dr. Abhishek Pallava is a revelation. In March 2017, during a counter-insurgency operation in the heart of Chhattisgarh’s Maoist-affected Bastar, then additional SP Pallava shot Somaru, a Maoist rebel. Stunned peers looked on as Pallava rushed Somaru to a hospital for his gunshot wounds. Pallava again won hearts when in January next year, during another security operation, he entered a dilapidated house to find the ailing wife and malnourished kids of Pohru, a “wanted Maoist”; Pallava ensured that the three were admitted to a nearby government hospital.
The twin cases brought Pallava, a 2013-batch IPS officer now posted as SP in the Maoist heartland of Dantewada, many accolades. However, for Pallava, a post-graduate in psychiatry from AIIMS Delhi, it isn’t these “celebrated incidents” that he holds most dear during his experiment with “soft policing”.
This story is from the January 20, 2020 edition of Outlook.
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This story is from the January 20, 2020 edition of Outlook.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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