New Delhi, Oct. 2: CRPF director-general Vikram Srivastava is being replaced by the man who hunted down Veerappan in the jungles of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

The Centre has decided to appoint K. Vijay Kumar as head of the paramilitary force, which has taken a beating in its fight against Naxalites, following the massacre of 76 jawans at Dantewada on April 6. Kumar, a Tamil Nadu cadre officer, had led the team that eliminated sandalwood smuggler Veerappan in 2004 after possibly the longest manhunt in India.

Srivastava, who was appointed CRPF chief less than a year ago, is now likely to head the Bureau of Police Research and Development. The post fell vacant on September 30 following the retirement of Prasun Mukherjee, who had lost his job as commissioner of Calcutta police over the Rizwanur Rahman case.

Srivastava’s transfer was finalised at the meeting of the cabinet committee on security this week and has been cleared by the Prime Minister’s Office, sources said. The transfer is unusual since heads of forces normally retire from their post.

Srivastava is due to retire in March 2012 while Kumar will retire in September the same year.

Kumar is at present the director of the National Police Academy and has been at the helm of training the batch that will graduate as IPS officers in three weeks. He was part of the Special Protection Group (SPG) protecting then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Kumar has also worked as IG (Operations) with the Border Security Force in Kashmir.

His senior in the BSF, former director-general E.N. Rammohan, described Kumar as a man from the field. “Srivastava is also a good officer but Kumar is a leader in the field. I have seen him operate in Kashmir,” he said.

Rammohan, who headed a committee that inquired into the April 6 massacre of CRPF men, denied that he had indicted Srivastava in his inquiry report. He said there was no question of holding the director-general responsible for individual incidents.

Larger questions of the leadership of the biggest paramilitary force — the CRPF is two-lakh strong — have been considered by the government, Rammohan said, but added that Kumar would have been better off as BSF director-general. “The BSF needs his leadership more and he is known there,” he said.

The BSF is headed by Raman Srivastava, Vikram’s brother.