EC removes Kolkata Police Commissioner

Kolkata – Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar was Tuesday removed from the post following directions by the Election Commission, a top state government official said.

“The city police commissioner has been replaced,” the official told IANS.

Additional chief electoral officer Dibyendu Sarkar told the media here that the decision was taken following the directive of the Election Commission.

According to sources, Additional Director General, CID, Soumen Mitra is slated to replace Kumar who will now take over as the additional director general, Anti-Corruption Bureau.

Opposition parties had persistedly sought Kumar’s removal alleging he was “working in favour” of West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress.

The Bharatiya Janata Party had even accused Kumar of “orchestrating a botched sting operation” against party national secretary Rahul Sinha.

While campaigning in city for the polls, BJP president Amit Shah on March 29 had alleged “Kumar had a direct role” in the alleged sting.

Sinha, on March 28 had alleged that two city police’s special branch officers, with the motive to conduct a sting, offered him “fat amount” to “cooperate with them” in smuggling cattle to Bangladesh.

The Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Front as well as Congress too have been up against Kumar, who as the then Bidhannagar police commissioner, led the investigation into the multi-crore rupee Saradha chit fund scam before the Central Bureau of Investigation stepped in.

Kumar, a 1989 batch IPS officer, had on January 29 taken over as the city police chief replacing Surajit Kar Purakayastha.

Image – IANS