At a time when the country is furious over suspension of IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal for taking on the sand mining mafia, a district superintendent of police who dared an influential legislator of the ruling party in Rajasthan has been quietly shunted out to a non-field posting.
IPS officer Pankaj Choudhary, who was the Jaisalmer SP until Friday, has been transferred out allegedly for reopening the history-sheet of Gazi Fakir, the father of local Congress MLA Saleh Mohammad. Jaisalmer residents and traders called for a bandh on Sunday to protest against Chaudhary’s transfer.
Fakir, who was allegedly involved in smuggling and anti-social activities along the Indo-Pak international border in the state, had a history-sheet opened against him for the first time on 31 July 1965. The police file, however, went missing in 1984. The history-sheet was reopened six years later in 1990, but it was ‘illegally’ closed in May 2011 by an ASP-rank officer who was then officiating as the district SP. ‘I reopened the history-sheet against Fakir recently,’ confirmed Chaudhary, the outgoing Jaisalmer SP.
In the pre-election IAS-IPS reshuffle ordered by the state government on Friday, Chaudhary-who had been the district’s SP for barely five months-has been given the new posting of commandant of the Police Training School at Kishangarh (Ajmer). There were reports that the IPS officer was removed from the field posting owing to pressure from Jaisalmer’s Pokhran MLA Saleh Mohammad.
IPS officer Pankaj Choudhary, who was the Jaisalmer SP until Friday, has been transferred out allegedly for reopening the history-sheet of Gazi Fakir, the father of local Congress MLA Saleh Mohammad. Jaisalmer residents and traders called for a bandh on Sunday to protest against Chaudhary’s transfer.
Fakir, who was allegedly involved in smuggling and anti-social activities along the Indo-Pak international border in the state, had a history-sheet opened against him for the first time on 31 July 1965. The police file, however, went missing in 1984. The history-sheet was reopened six years later in 1990, but it was ‘illegally’ closed in May 2011 by an ASP-rank officer who was then officiating as the district SP. ‘I reopened the history-sheet against Fakir recently,’ confirmed Chaudhary, the outgoing Jaisalmer SP.
In the pre-election IAS-IPS reshuffle ordered by the state government on Friday, Chaudhary-who had been the district’s SP for barely five months-has been given the new posting of commandant of the Police Training School at Kishangarh (Ajmer). There were reports that the IPS officer was removed from the field posting owing to pressure from Jaisalmer’s Pokhran MLA Saleh Mohammad.