Bhadreswar: The officer-in- charge of Bhadreswar police station was closed on Sunday for his alleged slackness in performing duty.

Anudutyi Majumder was closed on a day when Trinamul leaders led by Aroop Biswas held a rally in Bhadreswar to protest municipal chairman Manoj Upadhyay's murder last Tuesday.

While the state home department claimed the move as "routine", sources said Majumder's closure had been waiting to happen.

Nandan Panigrahi is the new officer in charge. He was inspector-in-charge of Chandernagore court. Panigrahi has also served at Bhadreswar police station as second officer.

Closing a police officer means he or she would not be able to perform duty in a public place. "The officer will be posted either at the office of the superintendent of police or in the district police lines. The in-charge of the office will give him or her assignments like receiving phone calls or doing paper work. In police commissionerate areas, the posting will be either at the office of the deputy commissioner of police or in the control room," said a senior officer.

The local Trinamul leadership in Bhadreswar had alleged that police failed to react to murder threats to Upadhyay. Party sources said some residents had complained to senior Trinamul leaders, including Abhishek Banerjee, MP and chief minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew, that the Bhadreswar police had been alerted about threats to Upadhyay's life but no security was provided.

The closure comes a day after Ajoy Kumar took over as the commissioner of the Chandernagore police commissionerate, replacing Peeyush Pandey. Pandey, the outgoing commissioner, suspended Pradip Kumar Das, the officer-in-charge of Telinipara outpost, for "gross indiscipline, conduct and dereliction of duty" after it was found that the suspects fled from Telinipara ghat in a country boat they had hired in advance.