Ranchi: Jharkhand government transferred ADG (CID) M.V. Rao, widely perceived as an upright officer, to Delhi on Wednesday barely a month after he was posted here, triggering suspicion that his three-week-old probe into the alleged 2015 police fake encounter in Palamau was getting too hot to handle.

Rao, who came from central deputation in November and will go back to Delhi as officer on special duty of Jharkhand police (modernisation wing), had reopened a probe of 2015 Bakoria Naxalite encounter in Satbarwa, Palamau, three weeks ago on Jharkhand High Court orders.

Though state home department issued Rao's transfer order, police brass off the record are claiming state DGP D.K. Pandey was instrumental behind the unscheduled transfer, fearing Rao's probe findings would be embarrassing.

In June 2015, four months after Pandey's appointment as DGP, 12 men had been gunned down by a joint team of district police and CRPF's CoBRA battalion in Satbarwa, including the infamous Dr Bomb, earning kudos for the team, but it was widely held that 11 had no Naxalite links.

Asked why he was being suddenly transferred, Rao, who had recorded statements of some policemen involved in the encounter, told this correspondent, "I am servant of the law and of nobody else. Please ask the people who transferred me (why they did so)."

State home secretary S.K.G. Rahate did not respond to this paper's repeated phone calls and text messages on Rao's sudden transfer.

Jharkhand High Court lawyer Rajiv Kumar, representing the families of victims in the alleged fake encounter, said he would file an interlocutory petition in court on Thursday against Rao's transfer. "Rao was pressurised by the DGP and a group of IPS to hush up the probe, whose status report he was to submit in high court in January," said the lawyer.

A senior IPS officer said even if an assistant sub-inspector inspecting an important case was transferred so quickly it would raise suspicion. "Rao started the probe in the Satbarwa encounter only three weeks ago on orders of the high court that had clearly stated that in the last two-and-half years the CID had not probed the matter. The court had asked CID to record statements of policemen involved in the encounter," he said.

Earlier, Rao had exposed how CRPF had managed to stage fake surrenders of 514 innocent tribal youths between 2010-2012, when Pandey was the IG of CRPF in Jharkhand.

The home department has put Prashant Singh in Rao's place. Singh was earlier ADG of communications and technical services of state police.

Other IPS transferred on Wednesday were Niraj Sinha (OSD police modernisation in Delhi), T. Kandaswami (IG CID) and Arun Kumar Singh (IG provisions). Sinha will now be the new ADG of communications and technical services, whereas Kandaswami and Singh were appointed as IG of Home Guard and state services, and IG of CID, respectively.