Didi picks Left-TMC's 'go-to man' as Kolkata Police boss

KOLKATA: A 1998-batch IPS officer known to be a troubleshooter replaced Vineet Goyal as Kolkata Police commissioner Tuesday evening, about 16 hours after CM Mamata Banerjee held talks with junior doctors spearheading the agitation over the RG Kar hospital rape-murder and acceded to their demand to remove four top officials.

While Manoj Kumar Verma transitioned from ADG (law and order) to city police chief, the state govt picked Dipak Sarkar of the Siliguru police commissionerate to take over from DCP (North) Abhishek Gupta, whom the rape-murder victim's father accused of offering money.

The clamour for Goyal's removal was over his handling of the rape-murder case. The protesting doctors accused him of tampering with evidence at the crime scene and mismanaging the situation that allowed a mob to storm the hospital early on Aug 15. In other changes, Aniruddha Neogi was made director of medical education and Swapan Saren director of health services, replacing Kaustav Nayek and Debashis Halder, respectively.

Halder had been appointed director of health services days before the rape-murder on the RG Kar campus. He is accused of being close to the infamous "north Bengal lobby" in the health department, comprising those whose alma mater is North Bengal Medical College in Siliguri. Nayek's appointment had also been questioned, with doctors' organisations alleging that he was the least experienced among those in contention for the post.

Verma, the new city police chief, has been the go-to officer for both the erstwhile Left Front administration and the subsequent Trinamool Congress govts in times of law and order crises. He was made SP of undivided Midnapore in 2009, when the then Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee govt faced the worst of Maoist insurgency. He played a key role in curbing Maoists in Jangalmahal. After Trinamool toppled the Left in 2011, Verma was kept on "compulsory waiting" for almost two years.

But facing unrest in the Darjeeling Hills during the Gorkhaland movement of 2017, Mamata made him Darjeeling IG. During a clash with Bimal Gurung's followers at Sipchu in Darjeeling, Verma continued to handle law and order with a broken jaw, going on to receive the police medal on Independence Day that year. He was also made Barrackpore police commissioner following violence in Bhatpara and Kankinara after the 2019 LS elections. He received the CM's police medal that year.


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