R.K. Pachnanda

Ranjit Kumar Pachnanda’s punishment at the hands of the Mamata Banerjee government seems to continue with DG Anil Kumar poised to be the former top cop’s boss.

First, Pachnanda was sacked as police commissioner for refusing to toe the Trinamul line — drawn by a senior minister — following the murder of a sub-inspector in Garden Reach.

The police commissioner was ordered not to name Munna in the FIR and to name Mukhtar as the killer, which he refused to do.

Then, he was appointed director of security, a post that would require him to tail the chief minister wherever she went. When Pachnanda went on leave and made it clear that he would not accept the posting, he was made ADG (armed police).

And now, the state government has decided to give him a boss — with Anil Kumar as DG (armed police), a post kept in abeyance since the exit of Pachnanda’s predecessor Gautam Mohan Chakrabarti.

Sources in the home department said the proposal was awaiting sanction from the finance department and was expected to come through soon.

Lalbazar sources said this was yet another deliberate move to humiliate Pachnanda. “Though many departments of the police have both DG and ADG, the armed police do not need to have two bosses,” said a senior IPS officer. “Why not fill the post of DG SCRB (state crime records bureau) instead,” he asked. The post of DG SCRB has been vacant since the retirement of Jogesh Chatterjee.

A senior home department official, however, claimed that this was a “routine affair”.

“Anil Kumar has been promoted to the rank of DG. Some other post of DG rank can be kept in abeyance to create another DG post. There is nothing unusual about it,” said the official.

Pachnanda, a 1983-batch IPS officer, has applied for central deputation. His nonagenarian mother has been ailing and been medically advised to shift to less humid climes.

But the Bengal government has refused to forward his application to Delhi.