New SIT chief is an old warrior

He replaces Karnail Singh,the Delhi Police officer who was released by the HC following his transfer to Arunachal Pradesh.

“I am yet to receive the order. The kind of thorough probe required for this case would need me to stay in Gujarat till it gets over,” Singh,a 1980-batch IPS officer,told The Indian Express.

The other two members of the SIT are IGP Satish Verma and Ahmedabad Police Commissioner Mohan Jha. Verma and Jha have often been at odds over the course of the probe.

Sources said that Dr Singh,while he was Police Commissioner of Pune,had taken on his own boss,the then Maharashtra Home minister Ramesh Bagwe,when he refused clearance to renew Bagwe’s passport last year since the minister had no less than 19 cases pending against him.

When Singh refused to buckle under political pressure,he was shunted out to the Establishment Wing of Maharashtra Police,where he serves now.

Earlier,during his stint as Nagpur police chief,Singh busted the ‘matka’ gangs there,unearthing a local politician’s links to one of the high-profile rackets. Here again,he was soon transferred out.

As a joint commissioner of police in Mumbai,Singh had cracked down on several underworld figures.

Coming from a small town of Basauli in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut district,Singh is an MBA from an Australian university and also holds a PhD in naxalism from Nagpur University,which had led him to do extensive research into the naxalite movements and tribal life.