Virendra back as DGP; Vivek Sahay reinstated as Director Security

Kolkata: The state government has decided to clean up the mess in police administration and issued transfer orders to a large number of IPS officers whose roles during the election period were not only doubtful but allegedly violated all norms acting at the behest of a particular political party.

The Chief Minister has restored the system within a few hours after taking oath for the third consecutive terms by bringing back senior IPS officer Virendra as Director General of Police. Virendra will be retiring this month.

Most of the officers, whom the Election Commission (EC) had appointed replacing the existing officers, were allegedly done at the behest of the BJP and many of the officers' antecedents displayed "doubts of integrity" but they were chosen because of their closeness to certain BJP leaders.

IAS officer of 2005 batch Smita Pandey, whose role was very doubtful as no repoll was ordered at Nandigram, has been transferred from the post of District Magistrate (DM) East Midnapore and posted as the Secretary of the IT department with additional charge of MD Webel. Purnendu Majhi, who was Managing Director (MD) of WB Mineral Development and Trading Corporation, becomes the new DM of East Midnapore.

Debashis Dhar, whose role in giving "clean chit" to the CISF for open firing killing four youths at Sitalkuchi led to a major controversy, has also been removed from his post of Superintendent of Police (SP) Cooch Behar. K Kannan has been made the new SP of Cooch Behar. Both District Magistrate (DM) and Superintendent of Police (SP) were changed on Wednesday. Rahul Majumdar and S Selvamurugan have been brought back as DM and SP of Purulia district. Abhijit Mukhopadhyay, who was DM Purulia, has been sent in compulsory waiting.

Three IPS officers — Mukesh (DIG Barasat range), Mitesh Jain (CP Asansol-Durgapur Commissionerate) and Sunil Kumar Yadav (SP of East Midnapore) — have also been sent on compulsory waiting.

Vivek Sahay, who was in charge of the Chief Minister's security, was suspended by the EC following March 10 incident in Nandigram in which Banerjee had received severe leg injuries after being allegedly attacked. He has been reinstated to the post of Director Security.

The 1995-batch officer Jawed Shamim has also been brought back to the post of Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) in which he was posted before being transferred by the EC. He was posted as DG (Fire). P Nirajnayan, who was appointed as the DGP by the EC on March 9, has been posted as DG (Fire). Jag Mohan, who was appointed as ADG (Law and Order), has been posted as Director of Civil Defence in the rank of ADG.

Three more police officers have been reinstated at the posts they were holding before the election process had begun. It includes Gyanwant Singh, who was made the Director Security by removing Sahay. Gyanwant has once again been made the Additional Director Security with additional charge of ADG Armed Police. Arijit Sinha and Avijit Banerjee have once again been posted as DC Traffic in Kolkata and SP Diamond Harbour respectively. In total, SPs of 16 police districts and Commissioners of Barrackpore, Siliguri, Asansol-Durgapur and Chandernagore have been changed. Indira Mukherjee has been made the new SP of East Midnapore. Manoj Kumar Verma has been made the CP of Barrackpore Police Commissionerate. Sanjay Singh, who was in compulsory waiting, has been posted as ADG Western Zone.