Kolkata: The Election Commission of India (ECI) Monday eliminated West Bengal’s Director General of Police (DGP) Rajeev Kumar and ordered he be shifted to non-election-related posts with quick impact. The 1989-batch West Bengal cadre-IPS officer, Kumar was appointed the appearing DGP in December 2023.
IPS Sanjay Mukherjee has been appointed as the brand new DGP following the reshuffle.
But this isn’t the primary time the ballot physique has barred Rajeev Kumar from allotting election duties. In the 2016 Vidhan Sabha and the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he was moved to non-election-related posts.
Welcoming the ECI motion and alleging that Kumar’s proximity to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wouldn’t give a level-playing subject to opposition events, Bengal BJP chief and MP Sukanta Majumdar instructed ThePrint: “One Rajeev Kumar has been relieved from election duties; there are many smaller Rajeev Kumars in the district police. We would want them to be identified by the ECI and removed as well for free and fair polls.”
Moments after the ECI’s order, Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Kunal Ghosh addressed a information briefing claiming central businesses, just like the ECI, are managed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). “BJP is trying to monitor the functioning and controlling such organisations, including the ECI, and use them.”
TMC Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien referred to as for a Supreme Court-monitored election.
Kumar, an IIT-Roorkee alumnus and Uttar Pradesh native, distinguished himself early in his profession on the National Police Academy. His tenure as a police officer has been marked by each controversy and acclaim.
He started his service as an sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) Chandannagar in Hooghly district, and went on maintain posts as Superintendent of Police (SP) Birbhum, Special SP-CID; Deputy Commissioner Central Division; Deputy Inspector General (DIG) CID (operations), Additional Director General (ADG) CID, to call just a few.
He was final posted because the principal secretary I-T, West Bengal authorities — a submit normally “reserved” for IAS officers.
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Kumar and Saradha chit fund rip-off
Kumar wasn’t precisely in Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s “good books” instantly as she stormed into energy in 2011 overturning the Left regime.
In 2009, Mamata’s shut aide Mukul Roy alleged Kumar was snooping on the TMC chief, who was then the Union Railways minister.
Following this, Mamata enquired about Kumar earlier than saying contemporary police appointments as she took cost of the Secretariat in 2011.
Once Kumar was appointed the primary commissioner of Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate in 2012, he has been recognized to benefit from the CM’s confidence. In 2013, when the Saradha chit fund rip-off broke, Mamata appointed Kumar to move the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the case.
Kumar arrested Saradha Group chairman Sudipto Sen and his shut aide Debjani Mukherjee from a resort in Kashmir. He additionally arrested then TMC Rajya Sabha MP Kunal Ghosh in reference to the case.
Six years later, the CBI interrogated Ghosh and Kumar in Shillong in the identical case after which the IPS officer secured anticipatory bail and no coercive motion assurance from the Calcutta High Court.
Mamata Banerjee’s extraordinary endorsement of Kumar in February 2019 triggered an enormous standoff between the Centre and state. When a crew of the CBI reached Kumar’s official residence for interrogation within the Saradha rip-off, the officers had been detained by the native police.
The CM sat on a sit-in demonstration on the streets of Kolkata and pinned a police medal on Rajeev Kumar in full public view subsequent to the protest stage.
But the identical 12 months, Rajeev Kumar was requested to report back to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) after the Election Commission of India eliminated him from the submit of ADG-CID following violence in Kolkata throughout Amit Shah’s election rally.
‘An efficient officer’
Known to be an environment friendly officer, senior officers declare Rajeev Kumar has the power to hold out secret operations — a talent demonstrated when he headed the Special Task Force to reign on the Maoists from 2009 to 2011.
His investigative prowess and formidable info community performed a key function in arresting tribal chief Chhatradhar Mahato, who’s now a Trinamool chief.
In his ebook ‘Dial D for Don’, former Delhi Police chief Neeraj Kumar praised Kumar’s function as a CID officer within the 2002 American Center assault in Kolkata and the 2001 high-profile kidnapping case of Khadim proprietor Parthapratim Roy Burman.
Last month, Kumar was in Sandeshkhali monitoring the police motion in apprehending native strongman Sheikh Shahjahan and pacifying villagers, who poured out years of complaints in opposition to native Trinamool leaders going unheard by the police within the locality. Kumar spent an evening on the distant Sundarban island earlier than Shahjahan was apprehended by the police.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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