The place was a restaurant, resort and marriage palace rolled into one. Gurbachan Jagat, former DGP, Jammu and Kashmir, started Whispering Willows in Zirakpur. Questions are also regularly raised over the way these cops managed to get permissions to run these ventures in the area locked under the Punjab Capital Periphery Control Act. Their positions must have “helped” their projects take off without the normal administrative delays. His experiment was obviously being watched keenly by his seniors, who wasted no time in buying large chunks of land nearby and starting their own ventures.

The pioneer in the business was Surinderpal Singh, SP, vigilance, and former SSP, Ropar, who opened Bristol, a three-star hotel in Zirakpur.

To prove, it is the line of resorts and restaurants on Chandigarh’s periphery, owned and run by top former cops. The police top brass, otherwise known for their tough and unbending demeanour, seem to have no problem in bending over backwards to woo clients in a bid to make a mark in the fast-growing hotel industry. But for Punjab’s top cops, hospitality surprisingly seems to come naturally. Policing and hospitality are strange bedfellows.

Instaling Whispering Willows