The Election Commission on Tuesday made sweeping changes in Bengal’s police administration through two separate sets of transfer orders affecting 19 IPS officers.
Soon after the announcement of the election schedule for Bengal, the Election Commission has gone on overdrive to “cleanse” the administration; it has ruffled the Trinamool’s feathers.
The transfer drive started with the moving out of the chief secretary Nandini Chakravorty and home secretary Jagdish Prasad Meena, followed by director general of police Peeyush Pandey and Kolkata police chief Supratim Sarkar.
On Tuesday, the commission appointed K. Jayaraman as additional director general and inspector general of police for north Bengal, which will go to polls in the first phase of elections on April 23.
K. Jayaraman
Jayaraman, a 1991-batch IPS officer, was abruptly transferred by Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s government in November 2013, a day after he had ordered the arrest of an IAS officer.
Jayaraman, as Siliguri’s commissioner of police, had ordered the arrest of then Malda district magistrate G. Kiran Kumar on charges of misappropriation of funds during Kumar’s stint at the Siliguri Jalpaiguri Development Authority (SJDA).
In a symbolic protest against Jayaraman’s shunting, five policemen from the commissionerate had tied a rope to the back of his SUV, asked the driver to put the vehicle on neutral mode and pulled it back for a minute.
Six months later, Jayaraman was appointed as deputy inspector general (modernisation).
Before the Election Commission stepped in, he was posted as administrator at the Forensic Science Laboratory.
Papiya Sultana
The Election Commission on Tuesday sent Papiya Sultana, the first Muslim IPS officer in Bengal, as superintendent of police of West Midnapore, among the trouble zones in the state.
Before the Lok Sabha elections in 2024, Sultana had been abruptly transferred from the home guard to the Barrackpore police No. 1 battalion in the midst of an investigation into the alleged atrocities on women in Sandeshkhali, North 24-Parganas.
Despite the unexpected move, the home (police) department had described her transfer as routine. She was posted as DC special branch of Barrackpore police.
Angshuman Saha
Angshuman Saha, who the Election Commission on Tuesday appointed as SP of East Midnapore, the home district of leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, was once summoned by the CBI in a cattle-smuggling case.
He was also commandant of the Gorkha Battalion.
Indira Mukherjee
The Election Commission also removed the DC (Central) in Kolkata Police, Indira Mukherjee, who was in teh spotlight in the crackdown on protesters following the rape and murder of a postgraduate trainee doctor at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital and also on teachers demanding jobs in the cash-for-jobs scam.
Mukherjee has been replaced by Y.S.Jagannath Rao, DC (Traffic), Kolkata Police.
Kumar Sunny Raj
Kumar Sunny Raj was appointed as the SP of Hooghly.
Sunny Raj was earlier the SP, Murshidabad, under whose tenure the Beldanga riot took place two months ago.
While an NIA probe has been ordered in that case, many on social media questioned whether any antecedent checks were conducted.