Shillong, Jan. 9: Narcotics Control Bureau chief Rajiv Mehta has been appointed the new Meghalaya director-general of police with the Centre relieving him from the post.
Mehta, an IPS officer, 1981 batch of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre, had served in various capacities, including as leader of the Close Protection Team of former Prime Ministers, including late Rajiv Gandhi, as well as adviser to the Indian mission in the European Economic Community in Brussels.
An official in the Meghalaya home department today confirmed the appointment of Mehta as chief of the Meghalaya police force. “A notification appointing Mehta as Meghalaya DGP has been issued today,” the official said.
The Meghalaya government had also received a letter from the ministry of home affairs, informing that Mehta, on central deputation, had been relieved from the post of director-general, Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB).
Mehta, who has been the frontrunner for the DGP office from among the IPS officers empanelled by the Meghalaya state security commission, may take some time to take charge.
At present, Meghalaya additional director-general of police in-charge CID and special branch, S.K. Jain, is the acting DGP.
Mehta will succeed Peter James Pyngrope Hanaman, who retired as DGP on December 31 last year.
Besides Jain (1984 batch) and Mehta, the commission under the chairmanship of chief minister Mukul Sangma, had on December 17 last year, empanelled Devendra Kumar Pathak, Rajendra Kumar and Ramesh Chand Tayal as the frontrunners for the post.
Pathak (1979 batch), is at present the director-general of the BSF while Kumar (1980 batch), is the chairman-cum-managing director of the Assam Police Housing Corporation Ltd and Tayal (1980 batch), is the director-general of the CRPF.
Jain and Mehta will retire from service next year.
On December 23, Mehta along with other IPS officers of the 1981 batch, was also empanelled by the ministry of home affairs to hold DG-equivalent posts at the Centre.
Mehta was appointed director-general NCB on September 18, 2012, after O.P.S. Malik relinquished the post on superannuation, when he was the Meghalaya additional director-general of police (law and order). He had also served as the acting Meghalaya DGP before handing over charge to former DGP, N. Ramachandran.
Mehta began his career as a teacher at The Lawrence School, Sanawar, for two years before joining IPS and an alumnus of St Columba’s and St Stephen’s College, Delhi.
As an IPS probationer, Mehta experienced action during the peak of the Assam Agitation of 1983 and was entrusted with independent responsibility to restore normality at Nellie in Assam’s Nagaon district after the communal bloodbath of 1983.
Mehta, who was the youngest superintendent of police in Guwahati, earlier served as deputy inspector general-cum-superintendent of police, East Khasi Hills, Shillong, from 1994 to 1997, deputy inspector-general, eastern range, Shillong (from 1997 to 1999) before being promoted to inspector-general (law & order/training/armed police) in September 2000.
In 2003 he joined the elite Indo-Tibetan Border Police Force (ITBP) as inspector-general and has been entrusted with the responsibility of supervising the international border with China from Karakoram Pass in Ladakh to Lipulekh Pass in Kumaon, a boundary of 2,115 km.