Chandigarh, Sep 1 (IANS) Less than a month after being removed as Amritsar's Police Commissioner after a controversy over his purported statement linking Pakistan ISI-backed terror modules busted by the Punjab Police with protesters at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Gurpreet Singh Bhullar was on Tuesday appointed to a key security post.

In a reshuffle that saw many police officials shifted, Bhullar was posted as Inspector General of Police, Border Range, comprising Amritsar, Batala, Gurdaspur, and Pathankot districts that largely fall along the India-Pakistan border.

He replaced Deputy Inspector General, Border Range, Harmanbir Singh Gill, who was given the charge of Amritsar’s Commissioner of Police.

Before the transfer, Bhullar was leading the probe that exposed an ISI-linked plot.

Last month, the Amritsar Commissionerate Police had busted two ISI‑backed cross‑border terror modules with the arrest of nine individuals, including four juveniles, and recovered three illegal pistols along with nine cartridges and four petrol-bottle bombs.

After videos of Bhullar’s press briefings went viral on social media, a police spokesperson had clarified that distorted excerpts from the press conference held by the Police Commissioner in Amritsar on August 4, during which details regarding the police’s busting of a terrorist module were shared, were an attempt to link the protests at Jantar Mantar with ISI-backed terrorist modules.

The spokesperson had said the Police Commissioner had mentioned that some of the arrested individuals had conducted reconnaissance at Jantar Mantar and planned to target protesters using petrol bombs. He clarified that no statement was made suggesting that the arrested individuals had participated in the protests or that the Jantar Mantar protesters had any connection to the module.

The altered background visuals, selective video editing, and accompanying captions or explanations "are incorrect and create a misleading impression that the arrested individuals were linked to the Jantar Mantar protests", the spokesperson had said.

"While the audio and factual content of the press conference itself were not altered or morphed, the selective editing and accompanying captions fail to accurately represent the press conference. These appear to be attempts to convey the Police Commissioner’s statement in an incorrect and misleading manner," he had said.

--IANS

vg/vd